


the ballad of wickstable heywood-tomaz

by rescuemechinboyandshowmethestars



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: (ft. mild angst and plenty of fluff to counteract it), F/F, F/M, Gen, LOVE and FEELINGS, M/M, and probably sex somewhere in between, and your author politely pretends that ne-ray does not exist for a second so we can all have fun, canon compliant for the most part but with a canon divergent finish!, just read it you'll have fun i promise, this is the sprawling nate/zari love story we all truly deserve, with background avalance darhkatom and some constagreen + charlie at the end!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:45:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19773265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rescuemechinboyandshowmethestars/pseuds/rescuemechinboyandshowmethestars
Summary: "No one gets two loves of their lives," Nate says thickly. "That's the point. Love, singular, of your life, singular, and that means you're supposed to, like, wither and die thinking about them with tears still on your cheeks.""What? What the hell is your idea of love?""I don't know," Nate says mournfully. "I'm in a lot of emotional turmoil right now because my dad doesn't love me and my ex has technically been dead since the 70's, but now I have to work with a shapeshifter who's stolen her face to solve a mystery."It occurs to Zari that this conversation is possibly above her pay grade. Nevertheless, she soldiers on.also known as the one in which nate and zari take a long time to find each other, are aided by the good intentions of sara and ray, and learn some lessons along the way. featuring book club, inept matchmaking, the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand, constantine's brooding being interrupted by hijinks, and the care and keeping of one baby dragon.





	1. pixie hunt and heywood-palmer movie night

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome! this fic is essentially my very self indulgent way of rewriting season 4 (which really was the best season so far imo) to have more nate and zari because i am Like That and i Miss Them. suspend your disbelief as you read because nate's on the waverider far more often than he really was and i ignore the ray and neron collab (read: havoc-wreaking demonic possession) for a little bit because i prefer FUN and LAUGHTER to misery and lack of time bros. on that note, this chap is a little more angst than usual, but i promise there's laughs ahead. okay, go have fun and i'll meet you at the bottom!!

It’s four AM, and there's an alarm going off on the Waverider. Zari jerks awake, blinking sleep from her eyes. She's going to kill whoever set the alarm off with her bare hands. Actually, it's too early for that, so maybe the bare handed execution can wait until tomorrow, but some retribution will be duly exacted. 

"What the fuck," she murmurs, which is an appropriate evaluation of the situation, because it is four AM and she is unfortunately awake enough to be conscious of that fact. "Gideon?"

Ominously, Gideon doesn't respond.

Shivering, she swings her legs over the side of the bed and onto the floor, fumbling for a sweatshirt in the dark. She steps outside, yawning, and stops dead.

Nate is standing in the hallway with no shirt on, a stun gun in one hand, and a butterfly net in the other, looking contemplatively around the corner.

"What the fuck," Zari repeats.

"What?" says Nate, turning around. Zari edges to the side to avoid the stun gun. "Oh, hi. Thank God you're up. Sleep well?"

"The earsplitting alarm didn't help," says Zari drily. "What the hell is going on?"

"So here's the thing," Nate says. "After you went to bed, we were gonna take the pixie back to the Bureau, and then Sara went to check on the containment cells with Ava, and then Ray went off with the jumpship and—well—"

"Ray went off in the jumpship?"

"Nora thing," he grimaces. "I can't rat him out."

"Okay, let me guess, " Zari says, frowning. "She left you in charge because everyone else was either in the medbay or asleep or Mick Rory, and the pixie got out and fucked up Gideon, so now you have to fix everything before she gets back so she doesn't lose trust in you forever?"

"...Yeah," Nate says finally. "How'd you know?"

"That's what  _ always  _ happens," Zari replies. "How the hell were you going to hit the pixie with a stun gun alone, anyway? You aim like a blind dog."

"I didn't want to wake you up, obviously."

Zari rolls her eyes. "You never have to do anything alone, idiot. Want me to figure out what to do with Gideon, or do you want me to catch the pixie?"

"Catch the pixie," Nate says gratefully, handing her the gun and the net. "Hey, was that a touch of sincerity I heard?"

"Get fucked," Zari says politely. She'd feel better about patching up Gideon than catching the pixie, but in all fairness, she'd offered. She'll be more specific next time. (Hopefully, there isn't a next time.)

"Pixie went that way," says Nate, and scurries off to fix Gideon.

Zari troops off down the hall to find a goddamn pixie, feeling a little underdressed for the venture, but determined nonetheless.

_ /// _

An hour  and a scuffle  later, Zari's standing in the middle of the Time Bureau in her Wonder Woman pajamas, holding the bagged pixie tightly to keep it from squirming. She'd given it an expired, linty Benadryl pill she'd found on the floor near Ray's room after she caught it, since the stun gun wasn't enough. (Her aim had been a little off, but she'd done the damn job, alright?) It's sleeping, twitching every so often, wings fluttering restlessly.

"Digging the outfit," says Gary brightly. When Zari glares at him, he continues hastily, "Ava said the cell's all ready for this little one."

"You think you can take it there on your own?"

"No," Gary readily admits. 

"Cool," says Zari wearily, because that's exactly what she'd expected. "C'mon. Let's go together."

So they take the pixie to containment, Zari valiantly ignoring both the way the scratches on her arms are smarting and Gary's enthusiastic monologue about the varied hibernation cycles of magical creatures. She's barely awake by the time they get back to the main office, shuffling along on autopilot. 

Nate's there, now wearing a shirt that looks several sizes too small and suspiciously like it belongs to Gary, talking to Sara quietly. He looks up when she stumbles in, grinning delightedly.

"Hell yeah," he says cheerily. "My pixie partner."

Zari looks down at his pajama pants and says, "Is that Yoda?"

"And what if it is?" Nate says defensively.

"Right on, brother," Gary encourages.

"That's enough of that, Gary," Sara sighs, and then, turning to Nate and Zari: "Do you two think you can handle it without me for tonight? I was gonna catch up with Ava."

It's one of those questions that Sara asks that never really seems like an actual request. Meanwhile, Nate gives Zari pleading eyes that suggest he did not tell Sara anything about how very off the rails things had gone a mere hour ago.

"Enjoy yourself," says Zari sleepily. Nate and Sara look immensely relieved for very different reasons. "Gary, can we borrow your time courier, please?"

"Anything for a friend!" Gary chirps obediently. 

Possibly due to sleep deprivation, Zari is feeling charitable, so she says, "Thanks, Gary!" and nabs his courier right off his wrist. "Let's go home, Heywood."

"Zari, you're in charge," says Sara. 

"I'm going to  _ sleep _ ," Zari grumbles. "Can Ray be in charge?"

Nate mouths,  _ jumpship! _ at Zari behind Sara's back. Zari tries to blink in a way that means,  _ be cool! _ It seems to be mostly ineffective and only serves to convince Sara that Zari's got an eye twitch.

"Don't let Ray call himself the captain and don't break anything," Sara says. 

"Never," Zari says sunnily, thinking that now is not the time to mention that Ray is currently only captain of the jumpship. Nate looks eminently shifty. She decides to use the time courier before he can do anything to blow their cover. "'Night, Cap!"

"Don't call me that!" says Sara to their retreating backs.

Back on the Waverider, Zari gives Nate a lazy salute. "Try not to let anything else out of the hold while I'm sleeping, 'kay? And tell Ray I'm gonna kick his ass for his mysterious trip when he gets back."

She starts to amble off in the general direction of her bedroom, yawning all the while. This place really is a hot mess sometimes. (She wouldn't change it for the world.)

"Hang on a second," Nate says, running after her. He catches her by the arm and spins her to face him; the heat of his hand is like a brand against her wrist. "That thing didn't bite you, did it?"

"Be glad it wasn't you and your inexplicably bare chest."

"I was in the middle of  _ changing _ ," Nate says hotly.

"Spare me," says  Zari. "Anyway, it doesn't hurt much. Just like a mosquito bite."

"Okay," Nate says nervously, and now his hand is on her shoulder, steering her down the hallway. There's something about his voice that indicates it may not be okay. "I was reading up on pixies while I was waiting for you and Gary—"

"Now's not the time for trivia, Nate!"

"Pixies have venom in their teeth and claws that causes nerve damage!" Nate blurts frantically.

"What the fuck," Zari says passionately, notably not for the first time that morning. "Why would you wait so long to say that?"

"I—don't know," says Nate, looking embarrassed, although Zari isn't sure if that's because of his shitty timing or the mind-boggling fact that he didn't mention permanent nerve damage before she went trotting off in her pajamas with a _goddamn butterfly net_ like the protagonist in a whimsical children's book _._ "There was this whole thing with Sara, and—we should just go, right? Come on."

"Oh my God, I should've  _ known _ something was wrong when I said  _ thank you  _ to  _ Gary  _ of all people," Zari groans. "Nerve damage?"

"It does this funny thing," Nate says. "Where you start to lose mobility in the—" Here he pauses and scoops Zari off the ground right as her right leg loses feeling and begins to go limp. "Lower half of your body first."

"Ex _ cuse _ me?" 

"You're gonna be fine," Nate says. "I'm gonna take care of it."

'"Wh— _ yeah _ , you're gonna take care of it, because it's  _ your _ fault!" Zari snaps. She can't feel her left leg now, either. What she  _ can  _ feel is the surprising firmness of his chest, which she is pressed against, and the tightly corded muscles of his biceps, which are wrapped around her. Where the fuck did Nate get all these damn muscles, anyway?

"Yep," Nate says, appropriately cowed. 

"Do you think you should mention this next time before I go grappling with a pixie?"

"Yep," repeats Nate.

"Idiot," Zari says, but it's lacking her usual rancor, perhaps because she's about to pass out. 

The medbay doors swish open, and then Nate's sliding her gently onto the chair and wrapping a monitor cuff around her wrist. "Gideon?"

"I'll take it from here, Dr. Heywood," Gideon says politely. Zari's never been so happy to hear her composed monotone before.

"Nate," Zari says, jerking her head, which is the only thing she can still feel, at him. He comes closer and bends down to listen. "You're a dumbass."

He laughs. "Yeah."

"Glad you woke me up, anyway," Zari adds, and then Gideon puts her to sleep.

So, the story of Nate and Zari starts with an alarm, and there's pixie poisoning somewhere around the middle. They've never been conventional, exactly.

_ /// _

" _ Zari _ ," Charlie says, slamming her elbow into Zari's ribs.

"Fuck  _ off _ ," Zari says automatically, looking up from her tablet. "I don't remember Amaya's elbows being that pointy. Is that a shapeshifter thing?"

Charlie sighs. "Well, maybe Amaya's elbows weren't as bloody perfect as you thought they were, mate."

Zari rubs her side with her free hand and glares at Charlie. "Is there a reason for this, or are you just being an ass?"

"You  _ got _ to tell this white man to stop staring at me," says Charlie, scooting closer to Zari as if to hide behind her.

"Which one?" Zari asks, allowing Charlie to use her as a human shield. She puts her tablet down and looks around. "We're supposed to be schmoozing Director Heywood, so I can't exactly—"

" _ No _ , the one who could feed an undeveloped country with all the money he spends on hair gel."

Zari laughs a little too loud to be situationally appropriate and earns a meaningful glance from Sara that can be roughly translated to,  _ be fucking normal, idiot _ . "Okay, give me a second. Hey, Nate?"

Nate looks up from where he's pretending to be a paragon of manliness and virtue by his dad and blinks at her. "Yeah?"

"Can you come with me for a sec, bud? We need to, uh, recalibrate the...chronometer."

"I just did th—" Ray begins.

Charlie interrupts by throwing a pencil at his head and glaring ferociously. Zari, for her part, is amazed to discover that there  _ is _ such a thing as a chronometer, which only moments ago she'd thought would be a good, nonexistent excuse to drag Nate aside. Nate gives them all a deeply confused look.

"It's  _ notoriously _ faulty on these kinds of ships," Zari says confidently, giving Ray a hard stare. She turns back to Nate and tries to look like someone who knows what a chronometer is, and furthermore, how to  _ fix _ one. "You coming?"

"I...guess," Nate says, glancing back at his dad, who seems to be embroiled in an unspoken standoff with Sara anyway. 

"Great!" Zari chirps. She whispers to Charlie, "I'll take care of it. Just don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

"Fine," Charlie mutters back. "You tell him that if he gives me that weird look again, I'll cut his dick off and—"

"I  _ said _ I'd take care of it!" Zari hisses. She grabs the edge of Nate's sleeve and drags him out of the bridge.

"Hey, if we need to fix the chronometer, I gotta go to Ray's room and grab the—"

"Shut up," Zari says, unceremoniously shoving him into the library and waving the door shut behind them. "Forget about the chronometer."

"It's not leaking anymore?" Nate asks, looking charmingly confused. "Are you sure?"

"I don't even know what that  _ is _ ," Zari sighs. "No, look, I have to tell you something. Friend to friend."

"Oh," says Nate. He leans against the edge of the desk, smiling at her. "Well, if it's friend to friend—"

"Charlie is not Amaya," Zari says, and watches his face fall like a kicked puppy.  _ Fuck _ , Zari is so not up to the job of kicking a puppy right now.

"I...know," he says. He sounds suspiciously like he has still not processed this.

"Great," says Zari. "Except you keep  _ looking _ at her like she's Amaya, and she's far more prone to kicking, biting, and generally raising hell than Amaya was, so I can't help feeling like that's going to be a problem."

Nate is quiet for a long time—long enough that Zari starts to feel actively bad for him. Finally, he says, "Sometimes I think she was the love of my life, you know."

Oh, fuck.

"Should I go get Ray for this?" Zari asks. "Because I don't think I can bro hug like he can, and it seems like this calls for a bro hug."

Nate laughs—but in a way that is even sadder than if he'd just outright sobbed—and runs a hand over his face. "No, sorry. I'm being an idiot. It's not your problem. I'll leave Am— _ Charlie _ alone."

Again, but with feeling: oh, fuck. Zari suppresses a sigh. What would Ray do?

She hops up on the desk next to him, her legs swinging in the air. Ray would probably say something nice right now. "Uhh. I'm here for you?"

"Thanks," Nate says. He's trying to bore a hole through the floor with his eyes and emerge on the other side into the cold, unfeeling vacuum of space and time. (This venture is unsuccessful.) "I feel weird."

Zari doesn't know what to say, so she's quiet, but in what she hopes is a sage and meaningful way like Ray would be. 

"I thought I was over it," says Nate. "No, I  _ am  _ over it. I am. It's just harder than I thought to see her face, is all. Even on someone else. I miss her, you know?"

Zari had liked—well, if she’s honest,  _ loved _ —Amaya a lot, mostly because she always shared snacks and makeup, never hogged the bathroom, and was good at punching people when she wasn't being sanctimonious. She was generous with her time and her affection, a patient teacher with the totem, and she’d never once made Zari feel small. So she gets it. "I know, Nate."

"I  _ am  _ over it," he says again. "Seriously. God. I don't think I'm still in love with her. Should I take the jumpship and try to find a rebound? Don't answer that, I'll ask Ray later."

"Ooookay," says Zari. "Well, one, don't take the jumpship. Two, you moved heaven and earth to be with this woman. I don't think it's crazy that you still want to cry into a bowl of ice cream and watch  _ Ghost  _ for the four hundredth time over it."

"You know about that?" 

"I've seen all those Cherry Garcia tubs in the trash, man," Zari says comfortingly. She pats his shoulder.

Nate makes a noise that Zari has a feeling might be a sniffle.

"She'd be happy if she knew you were trying to move on," Zari says. "It doesn't diminish your progress just because you miss her. And maybe she was the love of your life, but there aren't any rules that say you don't get  _ two _ loves of your life, are there? Maybe there's another one out there."

"No one gets two loves of their lives," Nate says thickly. "That's the  _ point _ .  _ Love _ , singular, of your  _ life _ , singular, and that means you're supposed to, like, wither and die thinking about them with tears still on your cheeks."

"What? What the hell is your idea of love?"

"I don't know," Nate says mournfully. "I'm in a lot of emotional turmoil right now because my dad doesn't love me and my ex has technically been dead since the 70's."

It occurs to Zari that this conversation is possibly above her pay grade. Nevertheless, she soldiers on. 

"Look," she insists. "You're Nate Heywood. You're a time travelling history professor who can turn into  _ steel _ at will, and you're trying to tell me you only get  _ one _ love of your life? Since when are you one for following the rules?"

"You make a fair point," says Nate, whose face is still sadly hidden in his hands.

"How about this," she says.  _ Bring it home, Zari _ , she thinks, panicked. "You keep being secretly sad about it when you want to, and I'll buy you all the Cherry Garcia in the world. Just don't bother Charlie. And then when you're done, I'll find you a rebound myself. Deal?"

"Oh my God," Nate says, looking up. His eyes are a little misty, but Zari politely ignores it. "You sounded  _ just  _ like Ray. That was  _ freaky _ ."

"Yeah, well," Zari says, feeling strangely proud of herself. "Don't you  _ dare _ ask me for a chest bump."

"Cross my heart and hope to die. Hey—"

" _ Or _ a high five."

"Shut  _ up _ , I was gonna ask what your breakup ice cream is."

"Anything with brownie chunks," Zari says. "If you ever tell anyone I was nice to you—"

"You're ruining the moment," says Nate. "Can I  _ please _ have a bro hug, though?"

"No."

Nate pouts. It makes Zari want to punch him. (But  _ gently _ , because she’s got a bleeding heart like that.)

"You're a stone cold killer, you know that?"

"Thanks," Zari says, pleased. He helps her down from the desk even though she doesn't really need it. "Go find Ray."

"Yes, ma'am."

When she gets back, Charlie grudgingly says thank you because "that ponce with the pomade cut it out before I had to kill him" so Zari counts that as a victory. And after the disaster with the Minotaur, when she's exhausted beyond words and all she wants to do is collapse, she heads back to her room and finds a melting pint of double chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks on her desk, with a glimmering silver spoon beside it.

Maybe Nate isn't so bad, after all.

_ /// _

It's late—how late, she doesn't know, and time is relative anyway—and Zari's running another sim. It's one of a hundred she's put in data points for tonight, trying, as always, to figure out a way to save her family. They always come up empty. She keeps trying. (She  _ has  _ to keep trying.)

"Perhaps," Gideon says tactfully. "A change in scenery might help? I would be happy to notify you when the simulation has reached completion."

Zari lifts her head up from her desk and rubs her eyes. "You're probably right."

"Might I suggest the galley? It has been approximately nine and a half hours since your last meal, Miss Tomaz."

"It's creepy when you do that," Zari mutters. 

"In this case, I believe that is synonymous with helpful," Gideon says crisply.

"It doesn't make it  _ not _ creepy," Zari says. Gideon is quiet in a distinctly sarcastic manner. "Fine. Jesus. I'll go."

She gets up, her joints sore and aching from being folded into her desk chair for hours. She finds a sweatshirt and wanders out of her room, headed for the galley. The sim can wait. She knows what the results will be, anyway.

The last person she expected to find up is Ray, mostly because she's always assumed that Ray goes to bed at nine PM in a matching pajama set and sleeps for exactly eight hours on his back, unmoving and tranquil, like the overbearing but well intentioned father in a 1950's sitcom. (Not that she spends a lot of time thinking about Ray sleeping, really. He just gives off that vibe.)

Also, the last thing she expected him to be doing is making microwave popcorn. He's _ always  _ complaining that it's full of toxins.

"Good afternoon?" Zari tries, realizing she hasn't been aware of what time it is in a while.

"Jeez! What are you doing up, Zari?"

See, he even  _ sounds _ like a dad. You can't blame her. 

"It's not  _ that _ late," says Zari. He has a big bowl of M&Ms out, so she forcibly appropriates a handful.

"It's three in the morning," Ray says skeptically, smacking at her hand weakly.

She hops up on the counter across from him, kicking the cabinet doors with a muffled thud. "Good to know."

"Have you been messing with the chrono-displacer again?"

"What? No!" she huffs. "I was running another sim."

"Oh, Zee," Ray says sympathetically.

"No," says Zari quickly, trying to get ahead of that face he makes. That very specific face that he's starting to make  _ right now _ , with his freakishly big eyes getting all soft and watery. It's the kind of face that can only be followed by a gooey comment she's not prepared for right now or ever. "It's fine, it wasn't—"

"What the hell takes popcorn so long to make?" Nate interrupts, charging into the galley with all the grace of a bull trampling a generation's worth of Wedgwood. He bounces— _ bounces _ , because Nate is mysteriously energetic at  _ three AM _ —over to Ray and crams an entire handful of chocolate into his mouth. "Good morning, Zari!"

"Good morning, Nate," she says, not mentioning the fact that being up at three is never a good start to the morning, because, unlike Ray, she isn't much of a pedant.

"Yes, it  _ is  _ a good morning," says Nate, almost incomprehensible around the M&Ms, "Because I am spending time with my best friend in the entire world."

"We're watching a movie," says Ray.

"Because we are  _ best friends _ ," Nate says pointedly. "Who  _ love each other. _ "

"Because Sara ignored his memo about team movie night," Ray says, patting Nate's shoulder. Nate visibly deflates.

"I would die for you, man," Nate says, soldiering on anyway. 

Weirdly, this is kind of making her feel better about the whole family-inevitably-doomed situation. 

"Uh-huh," she says. "How much of that has to do with the fact that he's the only one who wants to watch whatever weird movie you want to?"

"None of it," Nate says emphatically. Zari raises an eyebrow. "Like, only five percent of it. I'll be honest and say it's a factor."

"That's okay, bro," Ray says. "That's what love is."

"Also, for your information, the Heywood-Palmer movie night choice is  _ Moulin Rouge _ ," Nate says. "Very good stuff."

"That is  _ the  _ last thing I expected," Zari replies.

"Ewan McGregor is a stud," Nate announces. "Open your mouth, Zee, I'm gonna throw you chocolate."

Zari obediently opens her mouth. Nate pelts her with a series of M&Ms. All of them miss.

"Can't win 'em all," he shrugs. 

"Can't win  _ any _ of 'em, is more accurate," says Zari. "Alright, I should probably go."

"Yeah? What are you up to at this ungodly hour that requires your immediate attention?"

"She was—" Ray begins.

" _ I _ wasn't doing anything," Zari cuts Ray off. Ray gives her sad, kicked puppy eyes. Like, the saddest puppy in the world, with a squishy little kicked puppy side. He and Nate really have that look down pat. Maybe they learned it from each other, she muses.

Nate squints at Ray. "Why are you making your sad eyes?"

"I—don't know," Ray says guiltily. "Let me get the popcorn, eh?"

Nate swivels on Zari, suddenly looking weirdly alert for a man who'd been calling Ewan McGregor a stud and slamming fistfuls of M&Ms like a slap-happy five year old mere moments ago. "Why's he got SFS?"

"He has  _ what now _ ?" she says blankly.

"Sad face syndrome!"

Well, that's not an inaccurate term for it.

Ray returns with the popcorn and a bowl. "Hey, doesn't this look just fantastic?"

Nate frowns. "You hate microwave popcorn. You're always telling me that you only make it  _ just _ for me.”

"I do  _ not _ ,” Ray lies.

“Yeah, you do,” Zari says automatically. “You say that the bag lining gives you cancer.”

“It used to contain perfluorooctanoic acid,” Ray says, without stumbling over a single unnecessary vowel. “So I would say I’m  _ right  _ about that, but—anyway, looks good, huh?”

“Ray, why would you lie about dumb shit like popcorn?" Nate asks. "Something happen, Zee?"

"You sound like a principal sitting backwards in a chair and telling me you can't fix the bullying unless I tell you who it is," Zari says drily.

"Oh, did that happen to you, too?" Ray exclaims. 

"Ray," she says comfortingly, regretting her use of analogy. "You know, if you ever just need to talk, let me know."

"Yeah, bud," Nate says. "I'm right down the hall."

"Maybe I should go set the movie up," Ray says hurriedly. He takes the popcorn and the candy and hightails it out.

And then he's gone, and it's just Nate and Zari in a Mexican standoff, if a Mexican standoff involved no guns and was just two adults in their pajamas—Nate back in the Yoda pants and Zari in a Wonder Woman sweatshirt—staring at each other over a discarded bag of popcorn. Zari folds her arms across her chest and glares at Nate. Nate glares back.

"I liked it better when you were talking about Ewan McGregor," she says. "Just so you know."

"Yeah, you have two eyes and a heart, so  _ obviously _ you like talking about Ewan McGregor!"

"And on  _ that _ note, maybe I should go to bed," Zari says, eyeing the door.

"Don't be a dumbass, Zee," he says, shifting to block her. "I'm your bro. Tell me what's wrong."

"You're my  _ bro _ ?" Zari says, rolling her eyes.

"I know you like Double Chocolate Brownie Chunk, don't I?"

"I mean, yeah," she grumbles. That's ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of things, really, but she's aware that there's no one else awake—Ray doesn't count—to talk to about this and she should probably take the chance. "You're such an idiot. I was running another sim, okay? It's not a big deal. Fuck off."

Nate says, "Anything new?"

She loves him for saying that—not  _ oh, Zari _ all sad like Ray would or  _ don't beat yourself up _ like Sara, just expectant and practical like there really could be something else. Like he doesn't think it's a fool's errand. (And if she's honest, even  _ she's _ beginning to think it's a fool's errand.)

"Nope," she says flatly. 

"I'm sorry," Nate says, and he really does sound like he means it. He comes around the kitchen island to lean against the counter next to her, the line of his body pressed against her legs. Solid, a hint of the steel coiled beneath his skin. "I know it doesn't mean anything at this point, but I am."

"No, it—it means something," she says. "I just…We spend every day working to save other people, and then there's all the stuff with the creatures, and...sometimes I worry I'm letting them fall by the wayside."

"You're not forgetting about them, Zari. You're not. You're doing what you can with what you've got, and that's okay," Nate says. He's matter-of-fact; he seems to know that she can't be lied to right now. "Sometimes it's all we can do."

She rubs the back of her neck. Spins the ring on her right hand. Anything to distract her. "I—I miss Behrad. And I think he'd forgive me. Because I haven't given up on him, I  _ haven't _ , but. He'd want me to put the needs of the many above the few, and I know that. But it kills me, sometimes, wondering if...if—"

"He'd be proud of you. He would."

She looks up at him. He smiles softly at her, not a hint of doubt in his face. He has a little dot of chocolate from the M&Ms on his cheek. "You think?" Zari asks, her voice thick with tension.

"Look at you, Zari," Nate says. "There isn't a timeline where your family isn't proud of you."

She chokes on something that wants to be a sob and tries to bridle her tears, but it doesn't quite work, and then she's just sitting on the counter in the galley  _ crying _ , which is kind of her nightmare.

Nate hands her a paper towel nervously. She takes it gratefully, mopping at her cheeks. She's shaking and she can't seem to stop it, because it's dawned on her that she's been holding everything so close to her chest for so long. And she's aware that she's got a team—that she's got  _ friends _ —but sometimes, like right now, it feels like there's no one else to carry the weight. She has to do it alone.

Nate says, "Hey,"

"Hey," Zari sniffles.

"I'm here," he says simply. "Come on."

He puts his hands on her waist and lifts her off the counter like she weighs nothing. Zari has one terrified second to think  _ what! _ before he pulls her in against his chest. He wraps his arms around her and suddenly, she can't think about anything else. 

"I'm getting snot on you," Zari says against his sweatshirt. "Lemme go."

"No," Nate says firmly. "Dumbass. Like I'd let you cry here alone. Get your snot on me. I have a thousand Star Wars sweatshirts, Zee, I can do this all day."

Zari lets out a shameful hybrid of a laugh and another sob against his chest. She can't say this isn't nice. She can't say it doesn't make her feel like there's someone on her side. 

"You're an idiot," she hiccups. "You're the nicest idiot I know."

"Hell yeah I am," Nate says. His thumb rubs idle circles into her shoulder blades. "You're gonna be okay. Do you want to watch  _ Moulin Rouge  _ with us?"

"It'll make me cry again," Zari admits, because who  _ hasn't _ teared up during  _ Elephant Love Medley. _

"So cry," Nate says. "I got a whole other shoulder that's still dry. I'll save it for you. Ray might be jealous, but he'll live."

"Shut  _ up _ ," Zari says, but she's laughing anyway.

Nate gives her one last squeeze, and then he lets her disentangle herself from his arms. He pats her shoulder. "Okay?"

"God, fine," she sighs. "I'll come."

" _ Fuck _ yeah!" Nate crows. "Hang on. Did you eat?"

She's an idiot. It probably hasn't helped her case that she's running on coffee and that handful of M&Ms from five minutes ago.

"She did not," Gideon says from overhead promptly. "My advice does not always appeal to everyone."

" _ Gideon! _ " Zari says, utterly exhausted. She can take everything except robot sarcasm. There, she draws the line.

"I recommend something with more nutritional value than microwave popcorn, the lining of which is suboptimal for health, as Dr. Palmer knows quite well," Gideon continues, ignoring the fact that Zari has just drawn the line vis-à-vis robot sarcasm. "I can assist in such an endeavor if necessary."

"Zee," Nate says, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a tiny grin. God, but she loves that grin. "I think artificial intelligence from the twenty-second century just threw shade at you."

"She's not considering the fact that I, a human, have  _ hands _ with which to pull out certain  _ wires  _ which are crucial to her  _ operating system _ , because she's a robot. And she can't stop me."

"Or so you think," Gideon says, devoid of rancor because she's not a human, but also devoid of mirth because she's not a human, which makes the threat of her invincibility much more concerning. "Additionally, for the sake of accuracy, I am fundamentally different from a robot. Unfortunately, we lack the time for me to expound upon the distinction, since I believe you ought to eat sooner rather than later. Would you like a sandwich?"

"No pork," Zari says automatically.

"I would not forget," Gideon replies firmly.

Fine. She won't pull out any wires  _ for now. _ Gideon's on thin ice, but—

It has occurred to Zari that sometimes she spends too much time paying attention to people's faults—like being slightly shady about her irregular meals—and not enough time thinking about the ways in which they make her life demonstrably better—like remembering to never make her BLTs. It has also occurred to her that there is more than one way to say  _ I'm here for you _ ;  _ did you eat?  _ might be another.

So Gideon makes her a sandwich and Nate waits very patiently and does not complain about not getting to start  _ Moulin Rouge _ . Finally, Zari follows him out of the galley with a plate and a bag of chips, tears already dry on her cheeks. She'd never say this aloud, but she has to admit it's not so bad having someone in your corner.

(Later, on the couch, squeezed in between Nate and Ray—the latter of whom had been utterly delighted to foist off some of the popcorn on her—she remembers how nice it felt to have Nate hold her. How neatly her head had fit under his chin. How firmly he'd kept her tucked against him. It's probably not important, right?)

Zari's tablet buzzes with an update of the sim's progress to notify her. She's already asleep, her head on Nate's shoulder. Ray glances at the two of them, their faces smooth and untroubled in the light of the TV. He reaches over to flip her tablet face down; he's pretty sure it can wait.

  
  



	2. the first official meeting of the Make Nate And Zari Happen Club (name still pending)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I’m a government resource, then you have eminent domain over my body,” Sara says loudly, waggling her eyebrows.
> 
> in which zari and nate endure dot heywood, hor d'oeuvres, terrible fathers, and the perils of sharing one bathroom on the waverider. ray is the hopeless romantic we all know he is, sara and ava make up, and hijinks ensue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. ya girl is a day late and a dollar short but she's here. my apologies for the delayed update, but i wanted to keep tinkering with it and make it right for you (plus, adding a 3k scene last minute didn't help my case). plot housekeeping note: this chapter is canon compliant if you squint--i'm putting off ne-ray because that's just not where i want to be right now, and i'm politely pretending ava and sara made firm amends after 4x9 and ava is nowhere near purgatory. we do what we have to to get by in this life, friends. enjoy and i'll meet you at the bottom!

Like a true Legend, Zari’s gotten herself into something of a sticky situation, or in more technical time traveling terminology, what they’d call somewhat deep shit.

In her defense, it’s Nate’s fault, like it always is. It started this morning, when he’d caught her in the Time Bureau and she’d told him about the doctored footage. That went better than she’d thought it would, although she has to admit it was a special kind of torture to watch the realization that Hank might be involved in it all dawn on his face. And he’d given her permission to keep digging, so at least he trusts her instincts.

Except. Well.

He said, “You’ll be my plus one, right?” 

And if Zari was smart, she would have said,  _ absolutely not!  _ or maybe,  _ is Ray free instead? _ But she’s not smart, is she? So instead she said, “Uh, yeah. As long as we don’t have to do that thing where we pretend to be dating, or something.”

“Of course not. You and me dating would be totally weird.”

Right. That’s what she was going to say. Weird.

But here’s the thing—Nate was nervous and confused and scared, and yet he’d trusted her enough to bring her in on it. And so far, he’s done nothing but have her back. She’s got to pull it off. She owes him that much.

Anyway, dressing up in a fancy evening gown and pretending to be a functioning adult is not the worst thing Zari’s ever been asked to do for a teammate; that honor goes to Mick and involves a wire hanger, a full body cast, and an itch in an unfortunate place. She'll figure it out. Charlie’s got a curling iron, Gideon provides the dress (and about a thousand bobby pins for her updo), and Mona says something vaguely romantic but ultimately misguided to encourage her over comms, so it’s very much a group effort. (She also steals a necklace from Sara, but that's not important. Sara probably won't notice, anyway.)

She  _ almost _ makes it off the Waverider without any issues, but Sara comes bursting into the fabricator room as she’s finishing up her makeup. Zari puts the cap on her lipstick and resigns herself to having to break the news.

“Hey, Zee, Gideon said you—” And here Sara pauses to stare at Zari in the mirror. “ _ Wow _ . You got a  _ date? _ ”

“What? No.  _ No _ ,” Zari stammers. Sara crosses her arms and just looks at her, and yeah, it’s been a while since Zari had a proper mom, but she still remembers what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the kind of stare that can call you on your bullshit without a single word. She sighs and relents. “I’m dressed like this because the footage you saw at the Bureau earlier was definitely altered.”

Sara raises an eyebrow. 

“By  _ Hank _ ,” Zari finishes. 

Sara blanches. She takes a step closer, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder. “Okay, wait. Before I do the math on this—are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Zari says patiently. “Mona was telling the truth. There  _ is  _ a cover up at the Bureau.”

Sara looks briefly, intensely stricken before she schools her expression into complacence again. “Wh—what are the chances that Ava’s wrapped up in this?”

“Honestly, I don’t know yet,” Zari says, weighing the benefits of being truthful against the benefits of downplaying it all. “But if she’s not a part of it, then she’s probably in a lot of danger.”

“Oh, Christ. Can’t anything go  _ right  _ once in a while?”

“We wouldn’t know what to do if it did,” Zari says. She squeezes Sara’s shoulder. “You need backup?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Sara says firmly. Her jaw is set and her eyes are hard as steel; she’s already made up her mind to go in guns ablazing, Zari can tell. Maybe it’s not the wisest choice, but it doesn’t mean that Zari doesn’t respect her for it. “Is that my necklace?"

"Maybe," Zari says innocently.

"Looks nice on you. The earrings that go with it are on my dresser."

"You know where to find me if you need me, Cap," Zari says, deciding to avoid the topic of her minor jewelry theft. 

“That I do.” Sara turns on her heel and disappears down the hall. Somehow, Zari has a feeling that it’s not the last she’s going to see of her tonight.

Her phone buzzes in her dress, shaking her out of her thoughts. (That’s the benefit of having a fabricator powered by twenty-second century technology; your evening wear can have pockets no matter what.) 

It’s Nate, of course:  _ we’re meeting @ 6:45 right?? _

**literally in the temporal zone so i can do whenever,** Zari texts back. 

_...ur dumb 6:45 please _ , is his reply.

**all the fancy degrees and he says ‘ur’!**

__ 1 ) linguistics are fluid 2 ) actually wait what if i just come pick you up? i’ll be a gentleman  _ _

This was so not the plan. She needs, like, another five minutes to prepare herself for the inevitable clusterfuck this will probably turn out to be. She’s in the middle of typing a message to tell him that it’s unnecessary when Gideon says,

“My apologies for interrupting, Miss Tomaz, but Dr. Heywood has requested that you meet him on the bridge.”

"Fucking hell," Zari sighs. "Stall for me, would you? I need to get those earrings before I go."

"Fortunately, stalling is one of my myriad talents," Gideon replies, and her voice is the same serene hum as always, but Zari  _ swears _ her inflection is drier than usual.

"What  _ isn't _ one of your myriad talents," Zari mutters.

"Objectively speaking, punctuality is not one of yours," Gideon says calmly.

"Touché," Zari says, bested once again.

"The earrings in question are on Captain Lance's dresser to the right of the novel called  _ Loosed Attraction _ , Miss Tomaz."

“Huh,” Zari says contemplatively. She’d proof read  _ Loosed Attraction  _ for Mick; it’s one of his best works, in her opinion. It’s always nice to see someone enjoying the fruits of their shared labor.

After a quick trip to Sara’s room, Zari heads off to the bridge, silver earrings gleaming in the Waverider's lights. Nate's already there, squinting at something on Gideon's console and looking like the concept of suits was invented just for him.

She probably shouldn't be thinking that, because this is basically a mission—minus the usual magical creatures—and nothing else. It is definitely not a date.

"On time as always, Zee,” Nate says, grinning.

She smacks his shoulder with her clutch. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is a first class time ship. We aren’t going to be late.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, really,” he grumbles, punching in coordinates on his time courier. “Sorry I’m being so weird about this. I just get nervous about anything having to do with Hank.”

“It’s fine, Nate. I have your back.” 

“I can always count on you for that,” he says fondly.

And, well, if she wasn't so stressed out about the benefit, she'd probably notice the way his eyes widen when he sees her dress. She'd probably think differently about how he puts his hand on the small of her back when he guides her through the courier portal. She'd probably pay better attention to how soft his smile is when he tugs on one of the curls that's slipped loose from her bun.

Just friends. What could go wrong?

_ /// _

It turns out that a lot can go wrong, beginning with Dot Heywood saying, "Look at those excellent childbearing hips!" and  _ grabbing said childbearing hips _ . 

"Oh. My. God. _ That  _ went well!" Nate says as Dot walks away, muffling a laugh. Zari is trying not to gag and spit out her hor d'oeuvre, so she can't rebuke this statement, but it does not  _ feel  _ like it's going well. "Are you—are you  _ blushing _ right now _? _ "

"No. Shut up," she says firmly. Yes, she is, but _anyone else_ with normal emotions would be, too. "Take my toothpick. Stay on task. We’re here to get your dad’s phone. That’s _it._ "

"Yes, ma'am," Nate says, but he's grinning. Zari pokes him with the toothpick before she hands it over. "Ow,  _ Jesus, _ Zee."

"What? Citizen Steel can't take the heat?" Zari asks sweetly. "It's a tiny toothpick. Keep walking."

"You  _ stabbed _ me with it," Nate says, deftly sliding said toothpick onto a passing tray. He offers her his arm. 

"Is this  _ Italian wool _ ?" Zari asks, sliding her hand into the crook of his elbow. 

"Courtesy of Gideon, the finest tailor," Nate says. "I'm not shelling out for an actual fancy suit right now. The Time Bureau pays peanuts and rent in D.C. is nightmarish."

Zari opens her mouth to reply, and then Nate is sliding his hand over hers to pull her close against his side, and she sort of forgets how words work. He's got a little callus on his thumb and his hand dwarfs hers considerably and his palm is very, very warm. "Hmm," she says intelligently. 

"All good?"

"Mm-hmm.”

“Don’t get monosyllabic on me,” he says, steering her towards their table. “I need a good co-conspirator.”

“I’m great at conspiring,” Zari says, even though she doesn’t  _ feel  _ like it. She feels sweat beading up on her forehead and she feels her heart speeding up and she feels out of control, and it’s all Nate’s fault. Gritting her teeth, she takes a deep breath to clear her head. “Okay, take any opportunity to get that phone.”

“Noted. Do you want me to go find you more tiny treats once we get settled?”

“Please.”

“We’ll be done before you know it,” Nate murmurs. He raises his voice and says, “Hey, Hank!” and waves at his dad.

They’re really in it now.

_ /// _

Once they get the phone, there’s nothing left to do but lay low and play it cool. Unfortunately, Nate’s mom is making that a little bit difficult.

“Nathaniel,” says Dot. “I think that’s Thomas and his wife over there! You should go say hello. Introduce them to your beautiful girlfriend!”

Nate looks like Dot has just suggested that he submit to being tortured with thumbscrews. “You know, Mom, I feel like that’s not a great idea.”

“Who’s Thomas?” Zari asks.

“He’s a wonderful boy from a wonderful family,” Dot chirps. “He studied abroad with Nate at Oxford! They have two little girls.  _ Thomas’s  _ parents have grandkids, you know.”

Nate smiles—more accurately, grimaces—at his mother and leans down to whisper to Zari. “He’s a raging dick and I hate his guts,” Nate says quietly. His breath is warm against the shell of her ear, his mouth almost brushing her skin.

“I’d love to meet your friends,” Zari says politely, ignoring the shiver that rolls down her spine. She flashes Dot a winning smile. “Over there, you said? Is he the one by the champagne tower?”

“Can’t miss him!” Dot says cheerily. “Go play nice!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zari says sweetly. Nate appears to be trying to blink  _ are you insane  _ at her in Morse code. “Come on, Nate.”

He takes her hand and squeezes her fingers tightly. “...Fine.”

As soon as they’re away from the table, he hisses, “Oh my God, don’t suck up to my mom! You’re my fake girlfriend! Your loyalties are to me only!”

“Cool it, drama queen,” Zari says pleasantly. “We’re not talking to your bougie Oxford friend. We’re gonna find a plate of something that isn’t bacon wrapped and wait out the rest of this party in a quiet corner.”

“Wait, really?”

“Obviously. You think I’m going to risk another comment about my childbearing hips from a douche in a tuxedo?”

“I’m fully aware that this is a mission, but is it weird that I might be in love with you for saying that?”

“Eyes on the prize, Heywood,” Zari says, ignoring that for her own peace of mind. “Go get us some tiramisu. I saw a waiter with chocolate mousse earlier, so I’m going to get that, and I’ll meet you by the door, okay?”

Five minutes later, Zari’s following Nate into the hall, holding onto him with one hand and a bowl of chocolate mousse with the other.

“So,” Nate says. “Upon casing the joint—”

“You’ve just been to other galas here before, haven’t you? God, I can’t believe you’re the gala-going type.”

“You’re no fun. We’ll pretend like I cased the joint. There’s a mostly empty place up there where we can sit, is what I was going to say before someone rudely interrupted me.”

“My interruption was accurate,” Zari says mildly.

They troop down the seemingly endless hall in silence; Zari’s heels sink into the expensive rug soundlessly. There’s mahogany end tables with extravagant sprays of flowers dotted along the way, their petals starting to droop, a contrast to the ridiculously expensive vases they’re in. Nate pulls up short and jerks his head towards a window seat upholstered in lush fabric.

“Good?”

“Perfect,” she says, relieved to be away from the noise of the party. She kicks off her shoes and leaves them on the floor. He helps her hop up and slides in across from her, his back up against the opposite end of the alcove.

“Mission accomplished,” Nate says, handing her a tiny plate of tiramisu. She trades him the mousse and a spoon. 

Zari tips her head back against the wood paneling and smiles lazily at him. “Could’ve gone much worse. So, your parents are—”

“Insane? Terrible? Nutcases?”

“I was going to say something more like misguided but sweet,” Zari says around a mouthful of tiramisu. “I’m not crazy about your mom’s obsession with my hips, though.”

“They  _ do _ look very childbearing in that dress, Zee,” Nate says, a small smile pricking at the corners of his mouth. Moonlight pours in through the window, outlining the slope of his nose and the sharp line of his jaw in cool silver. “You can hardly blame the woman.”

Zari holds up her dessert fork. “I’m going to poke your eyes out with this if you don’t stop.”

“Message received,” Nate says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. Mom’s just yearning for another kid to spoil. My nephews are a little too chaotic for her. Just another item on the long list of ways I’ve disappointed her. I’m sure she’d prefer to be Thomas’s mom, really.”

“Oh, come on,” Zari says, nudging his knee with hers. “You’re a great kid, Nate. Skills with hair gel, check. Good taste in suits, check.”

“Useless degree, check,” Nate says. “My dad calls the shots at my job, check, paltry savings account, check, no wife, no kids, check—”

“Don’t get morose on me before we’ve even finished our dessert,” Zari says wryly. “Give the mousse back, ‘cause I don’t want you getting tears of heroic manpain in it.”

Nate rolls his eyes at her and hands over the bowl. “Sorry. It’s just—you know, smarts a little extra at times like these.”

She winces. 2042 feels a million miles away, but she carries the weight of letting her family down with her all the time. His predicament is all too familiar. “You’re a good person, no matter what your parents think, alright? Don’t let them define you.”

Nate swallows tightly. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Obviously,” Zari says. “I’ll do my best impersonation of Ray.”

“Quit it,” Nate says, half-laughing. “I—I just feel like sometimes I’ll never be enough. My dad does shit like this, gets a damn Altruistic Angel award, and he says he’s doing it all for me, but he treats me like I’m nothing when I’m right there in front of him.”

“Oh, Nate,” she says softly. “Well, alliterative awards are overrated, first of all.”

“Yeah?”

“ _ So _ outdated, honestly. Look, just because your life didn’t take the path your dad wanted it to doesn’t mean you don’t have plenty to be proud of. And frankly, Hank seems like a little bit of a misogynist. He’s got this whole ‘women shouldn’t be captains of timeships’ vibe that I find a little sketchy.”

“Oh my God,” Nate snorts. “Did you just call my dad a misogynist to cheer me up?”

“No, I called him that because it seems accurate, but that’s besides the point,” Zari says frankly, which might not be the best morale booster, but at least she’s honest. “Now, I’m only going to say this once, so don’t come back begging for another moment of emotional connection, alright?”

“Alright,” Nate agrees.

“For the record, I like you much better than Hank," she says. And maybe she doesn't need to imitate Ray, after all; it seems like Nate is strong enough to take the full force of Zari, unadulterated. "There’s something to be said for being in possession of an unwavering moral compass instead of being a bureaucratic, by-the-book asshole. He doesn’t get to see you in the field. I see the judgment calls you make all the time. You always put other people first. You always do what’s right, even if it isn’t easy. Your dad might not understand who you are, but your family—the Legends— _ does _ . Okay?”

“Okay,” Nate says, blinking at her, shocked into blessed silence.

“Understood?” Zari asks. He nods. “Eat some tiramisu and ride it out, bud. We can go home soon.”

“Zari?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you came with me.”

“I am, too,” she says, and means it.

On their way out, she hangs back and taps into her totem, sending an imperceptible gust of wind in Thomas's direction. It knocks his hand off balance and Zari nudges Nate; he turns just in time to see Thomas spill his glass of red wine down the front of his shirt. 

Nate says, "Officially, I cannot condone reckless use of powers to humiliate civilians."

"Unofficially?" Zari asks, because she can hear the grin in his voice.

"That was fucking fantastic."

In Zari's opinion, it's a solid success.

_ /// _

Sometime after the benefit and Sunjay/Kamadeva, but before everything goes completely to shit, Sara gets this harebrained notion that she  _ has  _ to set Nate and Zari up. It’s even worse because she’s got both the romantic chops of someone who’s been in a long term relationship  _ and  _ the intense need for distraction that the victim of a mostly  _ failed  _ long term relationship tends to have. (Yeah, that argument with Ava after Mexico and the kaupe didn’t end very well. Whatever. Sara’s fine. She’s fine, okay? All roads tend to lead back to Ava. She’s not giving up on her without a fight, but that’s not the point.)

Because Sara is  _ Sara _ , she goes about this like a hardened intelligence operative engaging in guerilla warfare. Everywhere Zari turns, Sara's there with an elaborate, calculated excuse to shove her and Nate together. Even when Nate is back at the Time Bureau headquarters, Sara finds a hundred reasons to send Zari down to the office under pretenses like "filing mission reports", which is complete bullshit because Sara wouldn't voluntarily file a mission report even to save her own life. And, okay, Nate and Zari are generally oblivious, but no one can be  _ that _ unsuspecting for long.

Even worse, she starts roping in assistants— _ accomplices! _ , Zari will protest later—to further her schemes. Ray is the easiest, most obvious choice, because he believes in true love with surprising sincerity considering that his fiancée was killed, his next girlfriend left him for a millionaire vigilante, his girlfriend after  _ that _ was an immortal hawk warrior who broke their engagement for her reincarnated soulmate, and whose current  _ objet de faveur _ is a witch who was previously possessed by a demon and once tried to kill them all. Ray Palmer practically wrote the fucking  _ book _ on believing in love in the face of overwhelming—and often correct—skepticism. If Sara's going to make this happen, she can't do it without him.

And so the Make-Nate-and-Zari-Happen Club is founded, name still pending.

"We're not calling it that," Sara says, at the first official meeting of the Make-Nate-and-Zari-Happen Club, which is just her and Ray in his room eating snacks and trying and failing to game plan.

"It's  _ fun _ ," Ray says. "It's also accurate! And if we want to be  _ secretive _ , we can call it MNAZH."

MNAZH sounds like a sneeze when he says it.

"I'm not calling it Em—Em-Naz—oh my God, Ray,  _ no _ ," Sara says. She throws a Swedish fish at his head for good measure. 

"Okay, we can table it," Ray says. "I'll just put that in the minutes—"

" _ Minutes? _ Ray, let's just be people of  _ action _ . We don't need to take  _ notes. _ "

"Right," says Ray. "People of action. I can do that."

Let the record reflect it does not look like he can do that.

"We need to move on," Sara says. She rolls over on Ray's bed, fiddling idly with the Yoda throw blanket. "Is this  _ Nate's _ blanket? Do you guys have sleepovers? Don't answer that. Okay, so my thought was that we just ask Gideon to lock them in a room together and wait till they kiss. Comments? Concerns?"

"Concerns," Ray says immediately. "Also comments. I have a lot of both. Many of them involve consent. But—"

Sara groans. "Fucking  _ hell _ , Ray, fine. Take the minutes. I can  _ see _ you struggling."

Ray exhales cacophonously and seizes his laptop again, opening a blank document delightedly. " _ Thank _ you, because I just really think that having an accurate historical record is the cornerstone of any functioning—"

Sara hits him in the face with a gummy bear.

"Let the record reflect that I am the victim of persecution," Ray says sternly.

"Let the record reflect my ass," Sara says.

"That's not productive."

Meeting adjourned.

_ /// _

Zari's having breakfast with Sara at an ungodly hour. (She'd been up combing through intel from their last mission and Sara had been practicing with her throwing knives and they both needed someone to share a coffee with.) It it is at this moment that Sara decides, with Ray's vague and not exactly enthusiastic approval—it's just not  _ romantic  _ enough for his taste—to put her plan into motion.

Zari says, yawning, "I should probably go take a shower before anyone else is up."

It's the perfect opportunity.

Sara says sweetly, "Great idea! Why don't I put the dishes in the sink while you get ready?"

"'Kay," Zari says blearily, and it's only because she's still half asleep that she doesn't find it strange that Sara has actively offered to do chores.

The moment she leaves the kitchen, Sara races out of the other door and straight down the hall to Nate's room, fully aware that he's probably woken up right about now. He'd spent the night aboard after a surprise trip to Angkor Wat to turn a chinthe back to stone, and she's ready to take full advantage of it.

"Hey," she says, sticking her head in. "You should go take a shower before anyone else gets up!"

Nate says, "How'd you know I'd be awake?"

"I'm looking out for you, bud," says Sara kindly.

"Good call, then, Cap."

It's probably because he's still worn out from yesterday's mission that he doesn't stop to wonder why Sara would give him the shower first in a very suspicious act of selflessness.

"Sure," Sara says, saccharine and polite and all the things she usually is not. "Better get a move on!"

Sara does not take matchmaking lightly, which is why she scheduled everything down to the second. She's given herself a solid buffer to herd Nate towards the shower, though they're now ahead by forty-seven seconds. She'd also asked Gideon to screw with the lock on Zari's door to keep her out for a minute, and then she'd hidden Zari's hairbrush and her moisturizer to impede her progress even more. Zari's notoriously slow at collecting everything she needs to get ready anyway, and Nate is weirdly fast in the shower—aside from all the time he spends with hair pomade, but Sara has duly accounted for that—and it all should mean Zari will bump into him at  _ just _ the right moment. The right moment being one in which Nate is shirtless and alluringly speckled with water.

Sara is a  _ strategist _ , okay? She's doing her best here. (Also, this part of the plan is basically the only thing that Ray agrees with—that Nate looks alluring when shirtless. Everyone with  _ eyes _ would agree.)

Fifteen minutes later, Zari's meandering towards the bathroom, her lost moisturizer and her hairbrush securely in hand. Kind of weird, she thinks absently, that the lock on her room had malfunctioned, but this is an old ship and it's probably to be expected at this point. 

She's juggling a clean towel pilfered from a basket Ray had left out, her brush, her lotion, Sara's coconut conditioner which she had borrowed (read: expropriated) because hers is running low, and basically everything else she needs to be a semi functioning human being that doesn't fit in the Waverider's bathroom cabinet. All of this means that she's not exactly paying attention to her surroundings.

"Gideon, can you open the—"

The door slides open before she can finish her sentence, and Nate's standing there, flushed pink from the steam and glistening, a drop of water slipping along the chiseled curve of his jaw and wending its way down his neck. He'd look very much like a statue of a Greek god caught stepping off its plinth if he wasn't wrapped in a very fluffy towel with a blueprint of the Death Star on it.

"Holy fuck," Zari says unthinkingly, and drops her conditioner.

"Good morning to you, too, Zee," Nate says pleasantly, hitching the Death Star towel up a little higher.

"Good morning, indeed," she says, wrenching her eyes away from his hip bones. She's an idiot. Who actually  _ drops _ something when confronted with a torso  _ clearly  _ sculpted with the Praxitelean canon in mind? (So what, she actually listens when Nate is talking about art history. It means  _ nothing _ .) "Sorry, I figured no one would be up."

"Weird," Nate says. "I thought the same thing. Well, I'm done if you want to go ahead!"

"Okay," Zari says dazedly.

"Zee," he says.

"Yep," she replies, staring intently at the wall above his head.

"You dropped your hair stuff," he says, and then he's bending over, which is a very bad thing indeed because it means that the sculpted muscles of his back are on full display. Zari registers faintly that he's got two little dimples at the very base of his spine.

"Oh-kay," Zari says blankly. Her brain is short circuiting. This is impossible. "Thank you," she adds, snatching the bottle from him.

"Sure," Nate says cheerily. "Have a nice shower!"

"I—" says Zari, holding the conditioner in a death grip. "Will. Have a good one. Thanks?"

"You feeling okay?" he asks, as if his abs aren't currently posing a health and safety hazard to her. He steps closer. Zari blinks, furiously trying to clear her head. “You’re, like, flushed.”

“I’m not  _ flushed _ ,” Zari says.

Let the record reflect that she is nothing if not flushed.

“Yeah, you are,” Nate says, and he grabs her shoulder to keep her in place with one hand and lays the other against her forehead gently—oh,  _ so _ gently—and frowns. “You’re a little warm, Zee.”

“I am  _ not warm _ ,” she says frantically. Nate makes her feel like a fucking wild animal experiencing tenderness for the first time, and just the fact that she’s even having a thought like that is a very bad sign, frankly. She squirms out of his grip and edges towards the bathroom. “I really need to get in the shower! Like, now!”

"Bye?" Nate says. He sounds slightly bewildered.

There's nothing Zari can do about his confusion now, except hate herself for becoming an idiot pulled straight from the pages of one of Rebecca Silver's romance novels who loses all functioning brain cells when confronted with a shirtless man. Nate Heywood, she thinks, is the Devil.

_ /// _

The second meeting of the Make-Nate-and-Zari-Happen Club has more attendees, if you count Ava in hologram form as an attendee. Also, the second meeting of MNAZH (name  _ still _ pending, but at this point, who's really going to change it?) is largely an accident caused by Ray running into Sara's room to discuss improvements on Gideon's neuromonitor system. Because Ray is a man with immense talent for terrible timing, he interrupts a video call in which Ava and Sara are sort-of-but-not-exactly patching things up after the fiasco in Mexico.

"You should really  _ knock _ ," Sara says, spinning in her chair to face Ray and glaring at him.

"Sorry!" Ray says hastily. "I just wanted to run some thoughts about the network processing by you before I—oh, hey, Ava!"

Ava smiles longsufferingly at Ray with the kind of patience usually known only by parents of small children. "Hi, Ray. How's it going?"

"Oh, fine, fine," Ray says cheerily. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"No," says Ava, at the same time that Sara says vehemently,

" _ Yes! _ "

"O _ kay _ ," Ray says. "I'll just go, then?"

"Much as I hate to admit it, Ray, we were just gossiping," Ava says. "I don't want to keep you away from Sara if you need to catch up about something important."

"Don't  _ tell _ him that," Sara snaps, waving at Ava's hologram in annoyance. "Then they'll all start to think they can come in here whenever!"

"Cruel," Ray sniffs. "I'm doing some updates on the neuromonitor system, actually, which is what I wanted to—hang on, sorry,  _ gossip _ ?"

"Shut  _ up _ ," Sara says intelligently. "Although, if you must know, we were talking about Nate and Zari."

"Sara!" he exclaims, with the kind of excitement that usually means she's not getting anything done for the rest of the day. She winces. "If you wanted to talk about Nate and Zari, you should've convened an official MNAZH gathering!"

"Ray Palmer, I am going to peel you like an orange and use your skin to make a throw pillow," she says flatly. "Let me talk to my girlfriend."

" _Actually,_ " Ava says, her interest thoroughly piqued. "I would _love_ to hear more about what an official Em—Em-Naz—what is that? Did you sneeze?"

"I  _ told _ you!" Sara crows triumphantly, grinning at Ray.

Ray folds his arms and glares at them both. "Em-Naz-Eh-Ch," he enunciates crisply. "It stands for—"

Sara throws a pencil from her desk at his head. "You gotta get the hell out of here, Ray. The name sucks, and I need to talk to Ava  _ alone _ ."

"Ray," Ava says seriously. "This is your commanding officer speaking. I demand that you tell me about—" Here she makes a sneezing sound. "—immediately."

"I'm gonna hang up," Sara threatens. She turns to Ray. "I'm your  _ captain _ . I'll eject you into the timestream and let the abyss swallow you whole."

"Don't listen to her," Ava says, standing up on slightly blurry hologram legs and walking closer to Ray. "I'm a director of the United States federal government, and I can make your life  _ miserable _ if you don't—"

"Okay," says Ray. "I get that trying to outrank each other is like your foreplay,"

"Don't  _ say  _ that," Ava grimaces.

"Damn straight," Sara says, smiling like a snake. "I can't believe Ray said 'foreplay'. I want to get a Polaroid of this moment. Gideon, did you record that for posterity?"

"As that would be a breach of security protocols, I did not, Captain Lance," Gideon says from overhead. Quiet for a beat. Then she adds, "However, I agree that it was a fascinating break in behavioral patterns for Dr. Palmer."

"That's one way to put it," Sara snorts.

"Let's move on," Ray says, because it's possible to endure Sara's teasing but far worse to suffer Gideon's. Nothing like being described as having  _ breaks in behavioral patterns _ to puff up the ego. "I'd be perfectly happy to discuss Em-Naz-Eh-Ch, which stands for Make Nate And Zari Happen!" 

Sara puts her head in her hands. Ava looks intrigued, bewildered, and also a little bit like she wishes she hadn't asked. People often look like this around the Legends.

"Make… Nate… And… What?"

"It's really all in the name," Ray says sapiently. 

"No, I get it," Ava says. "This is just…categorically the last thing I assumed Sara would be doing with you."

"See, Ray, you're ruining my reputation," Sara says irately. 

There's a smile tugging at the corner of Ava's mouth. "Captain Lance, this sounds  _ very _ much like the behavior of a closet romantic."

"Director Sharpe," Sara says. Butter wouldn't melt, so cool is her tongue. "I assure you that you're sorely mistaken."

"She's definitely not," says Ray helpfully. "Ava, would you like to join MNAZH?"

"We're not doing that," Sara insists, right as Ava says gleefully,

" _ Yes! _ "

"Great!" he crows. 

"While we're here," Ava starts. “I should probably mention that this is an enormous waste of government time and resources.”

“We are not government resources, we’re  _ people _ ,” Ray says firmly.

"Not what I meant—" Ava says.

“If I’m a government resource, then you have eminent domain over my body,” Sara says loudly, waggling her eyebrows. Ava makes a face that Ray doesn’t want to try to interpret.

“I’m afraid to ask what kind of phone call I walked into.”

“You should be, Raymond,” Sara drawls, her eyes flashing.

“Message received!” Ray says nervously. “Wait, so—Ava, you’re seriously down for this?”

“I’m as down as possible, considering the circumstances,” Ava says. “I mean, after Nate brought me to Thanksgiving at his house…I don’t know, he’s like the weird little brother I never asked for and don’t even particularly like, but whose existence I have to admit is tangentially amusing. I feel like I owe him one.”

“The Thanksgiving where he made you lie about his whereabouts and risk destroying your relationship with your boss, the man whose Department of Defense money keeps us in historically accurate costumes?” Sara says incredulously.

“There’s been worse Thanksgivings,” Ava muses.

“ _ How? _ ”

“Technically, Gideon keeps us in historically accurate costumes,” Ray adds.

“ _ Technically, _ Ray, it was  _ me  _ who argued with Hank for an hour after he was stuffed full of turkey to get the funds to repair the autonomously replicating fuel booster for the fabricator,” says Ava. “So count your blessings.”

“Say autonomously replicating fuel booster again,” Sara drawls, winking at Ava.

“One, you have no idea how hard it is to find the ones I needed for that without interchronological theft, two, very gross, Sara, please stop, but _ also _ , never stop because I love love,” Ray says. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Okay, back on track! Nate is undeniably the handsomest, smartest, kindest—”

“Are you and Nora looking for a third? Because we could solve this situation, like, right now,” Sara says. “Zari would get over it, probably.”

“What? No! I was  _ trying  _ to emphasize how worthy Nate is of our  _ help _ , Sara,” Ray says irritably.

“Methinks he doth protest too much,” Sara says smugly.

“ _ Now  _ is when you reference Shakespeare? After you wouldn’t watch  _ Much Ado  _ with me last night?” Ava says, crossing her hologram arms and glaring at Sara.

"I can be an intellectual when I want, Aves. Anyway. The handsomest man in the world according to Ray and the only woman I’ve ever met who can eat hor d'oeuvres without messing up her lipstick would be a great couple. Painfully awkward, like, have you  _ seen  _ them on missions, but still good. The question is, how do we make  _ them _ see it?" Sara interrupts.

"Just  _ admit  _ you’re a closet romantic," Ava says.

"I will strangle you," Sara replies.

"Many have tried," Ava says, with eerie equanimity.

"Hot.”

"I'm still here," Ray says.

"Indeed you are, squire," Sara says, sounding distinctly Constantine-y and making Ray very uncomfortable.

"Don't say squire or I'm not going to let Constantine back on that ship," Ava says. That’s not really a plausible threat, because at this point it does seem a bit like it’s Constantine’s world and they’re all just living in it, but she has to do  _ something  _ to keep the peace. "Back on task, please. I don't have all day. What does the Em… the Em-Naz… The sneeze club have in mind?"

"Please," Ray says. "It is not that hard."

"Name of your sex tape," Sara says, pointing at Ray with a pen. Ray wonders briefly if he can use it to kill himself before this conversation goes off the rails again.

"I took minutes of our last meeting," he says, valiantly ignoring Sara. "I can bring you up to speed.

"I always say that minutes are the cornerstone of any functioning organization," says Ava.

Ray lights up like a Christmas tree—no, a whole  _ forest  _ of Christmas trees.

"Not you, too," Sara groans. "I can bring you up to speed  _ without _ any minutes. We convened—yes, Ray, I'm using your word—one other time, which ended in Zari seeing Nate's abs, which was great, I'm sure, but resulted in no real action. So back to square one, basically."

"That was confusing," Ray says. "We need to review the minutes."

"Yeah,  _ so  _ non-linear," Ava says. “Do you have a PDF?”

_ Fuck Ray Palmer _ , thinks Sara.

"I'll email you," he offers. "What's our next move?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you had fun! i'll hopefully be back next THURSDAY and not early friday morning with an update next week. if you enjoyed yourself, please tell your friends/send ominous smoke signals about it/link it on tumblr or twitter (and tag me bc i wanna know!). acknowledgments are in order because this is not a one-woman show: V, your patience for all the stupidity in my rough drafts amazes me. i would never get anything done if you weren't around. remind me to buy you a coffee in return for your critiques. thanks also to abiha--you're the enabler i never knew i needed for this ship and i'm grateful to you for it! okay, if anyone needs me, i'm on tumblr @irltrash and twitter @vcikyrie (and if anyone new wants to beta, character nitpicking is always wanted). kudos and comments (i've loved all of them so far) keep me alive! see you next week xoxo


	3. matchmaker matchmaker bring me a match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aren’t you one of the Bureau’s jack booted thugs?”  
> “No!” Nate yelps. “I’m—”  
> “A wingtip shoe-d thug?”  
> “An independent agent trying to cure the pestilence of government overreach from the inside is what I was going to say, actually.”  
> “Agree to disagree.”
> 
> in which ray, sara, and ava are successful in bringing nate and zari together, but not exactly in the way they intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is as canon compliant as possible. right now we're existing in a nebulous zone somewhere between 4x11 and 4x13 so maybe just roll with it? the subplot contained within is a wholesale fabrication because my biggest issue with nate/zari as the CW put them together is that they never had the chance to bond the way that nate and amaya (or any of the other couples on the show) did, and this fic is my way of fixing it, so this and the next chapter are my way of unspooling a little more time for them. once again i've ignored the existence of ne-ray BUT we're gonna pretend that nora is working for the bureau by this point in the plot. we try our best to have fun. meet you at the bottom!

The next MNAZH venture is as decidedly misguided as the first. At the behest of Ava and Ray, they elect to give Zari a makeover and arrange a contrived meeting with Nate so he can witness the results of said makeover. It’s worth noting that their perceptions of romance have both been inexplicably shaped by late ‘90s romcoms for very different reasons (Ray’s being that he is enormously sentimental and Ava’s being that she’s technically a clone who had no adolescence). Ray insisted that it was his turn to pick the plan now, but Sara, for the record, thinks it is universally stupid. A makeover isn’t likely to change anything when Nate—and the entire team, for that matter—has already seen Zari in her natural state: sleep-rumpled, covered in popcorn crumbs, and complaining about Charlie drinking all of her coconut milk. There’s no coming back from that.

“There’s _some_ coming back from that,” Ava says over the comms as Sara troops down the hall to Zari’s room, armed with a curling iron. “We just have to make her look—"

"Super hot?"

"I was going to say as beautiful as we know she can be when she hasn't just woken up from a donut coma, but okay."

“She looks fine in the Wonder Woman pajamas,” Sara says obstinately. “ _And_ he already saw her looking hot at the benefit!"

"That was _before,_ " Ava says. "Nate is the dumbest smart person I've ever met. He just needs another chance."

"Magical romcom makeover moments don’t happen in real life, Ava.”

“You know, you can be wrong sometimes,” Ava replies. “That’s fine. I still love you.”

“I can think of three different ways to kill us both with this lipstick,” Sara mutters, knocking on Zari’s door. “Leave me alone.”

“I can think of _four_ ,” Ava says calmly.

Before Sara can retort (or comment on the fact that Ava's competence with makeshift weaponry is less intimidating than it is eminently hot), Zari opens the door. She’s in Supergirl pajamas—rather than the standard Wonder Woman fare—so it’s nice to see that she’s shaking things up a little, at least. “Hey, Sara,” she says, sounding confused but not displeased.

“Heeeeey, Zee,” Sara says.

“Too many vowels,” Ava murmurs in her ear.

“I—hey,” Sara says again woodenly, like someone who is realizing she's actually somewhat bad at lying to people she cares about, even if it's for their own good. Zari raises an eyebrow at her. “So, I was wondering—you want in on book club tonight? I was going to head out in a bit, and I thought I’d come check on you.”

“Oh!” Zari says, brightening. “That sounds...well, what book are you reading?”

“It’s called _The Woman Who Got Stabbed_ ,” Sara says. 

“Oh,” Zari repeats, in a slightly different tone.

Discreetly, Sara reaches up as if to scratch her ear and mutes the comms. “It’s terrible. Ava picked it. I think it’s one of the only ones she’s ever actually read, but I hated it. We mostly use it as an excuse to drink rosé—I know you don’t drink, though, don’t worry—eat shitty food, and talk about our problems.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Zari says, relieved. It’s amazing how much emotion can be contained in one syllable. “Having junk food and complaining definitely sounds more up my alley. Give me a sec to get ready?”

“I’ll help!” Sara suggests, pulling out the curling iron from behind her back. “Want me to do your hair?”

Zari raises an eyebrow. “ _You_ want to do my hair?”

“I dunno,” Sara says, forcibly keeping the nerves out of her voice. If this is the reason Zari catches onto their scheme, she’ll never forgive herself. “Could be fun. Like, girl stuff?”

“Why the hell not,” Zari shrugs, stepping aside to let Sara in. It appears her apathy has won out over curiosity. “Wanna go plug that in while I find a sweater or something?”

“Sounds good to me,” Sara says agreeably. While Zari goes to dig in her closet, Sara unmutes Ava and whispers, “Magical makeover moment ahead.”

“Oh, thank God you’re back,” Ava says. Sara can hear papers being shuffled in the background, an indication that she’s still at her desk and probably will be until Sara comes to forcibly drag her away. “The audio cut out for a minute when you started talking about the book.”

“Weird,” Sara says innocently. 

“We should have an acronym for that!” Ray interjects. “MMM!”

“Why’d you say ‘ _mmm_ ’ like that?” Ava asks absently.

“No, like ‘em-em-em’. Magical—”

“Why the _hell_ did you put _Ray_ on comms?” Sara hisses.

“Ray can hear you,” he replies dejectedly.

“I'm sorry, but you should know by now that I can’t focus with you recklessly abbreviating things!”

“Abbreviations are fundamentally different from acronyms,” Ray says.

“I hate to side with him, babe, but it’s true. Abbreviations are short _ened_ , but acronyms—” Ava begins.

Sara mutes them both again, damn the consequences.

Zari returns in black jeans, still with her Supergirl top on (and let it be known that Sara resents the lionization of a woman that she knows for a _fact_ is just as cheesy and lame underneath all the superpowers as the Legends are), holding two identical black turtlenecks. “Which one?”

Apparently, this is going to be harder than Sara initially assumed. Also, is it possible she’s been rubbing off a little too much on Zari? Maybe all the black is her fault.

“You know,” Sara muses. “The one on the right is...fine. And the one on the left is...also fine. Maaaybe, though—and this is just a thought—you have an outfit that doesn’t cover you from neck to toe?”

“It's _chic_ ,” Zari says helplessly. "Besides, who am I trying to impress? Mona?"

"Uh," says Sara. "Hmm. Well, you never know who you might run into along the way." She leaves the curling iron on the table and makes a beeline for the closet. She throws it open and rifles through three more black sweaters, two pairs of high waisted black jeans that look exactly like the ones Zari is wearing right now, several black T-shirts—

“Jesus Christ, Zee. I mean, I was an assassin. It’s not like I don’t get monochrome, but would it _kill_ you to branch out a little?”

Zari crosses her arms and glares at Sara. "It makes doing laundry easier!"

"You haven't learned to just slide your clothes in with Ray's loads? He folds like a champ."

“Ignoring that," Zari says. "Look, I have a red sweater in there somewhere.”

“No, you have a _problem_ ,” Sara retorts, rummaging frantically for said sweater. To Zari’s credit, there’s two of them right next to her favorite flannel—one bright and the other a rich burgundy. Unfortunately, they’re not going to serve her purposes very well. She pulls out a black tank top—it’s edged with lace and cut to display Zari’s muscular shoulders to their best effect, so she’ll have to compromise on color—and hands it to Zari. “Try that on.”

“Are we sure I have the biceps to pull this off? I’m not you, Sara.”

Sara gives her a disapproving look. “You have _great_ biceps! Not as good as mine, of course, because no one’s are as good as mine, but—”

“Not even Ava’s?”

“Shush,” Sara says, although it pains her to miss out on an opportunity to discuss Ava’s biceps. She throws a pair of very black socks at Zari. “By the way, Zee, the pajamas have to start coming off before one PM. Now, do as your captain says and put on that fucking shirt so I can do your goddamn hair, alright?”

“Time is relative, and pajamas after one PM are praxis,” Zari says, muffled as she struggles out of the Supergirl gear. “I’m defying stereotypes by not looking put together all the time.”

“We can agree that you don’t look put together all the time,” Sara says wryly, extricating herself from the clutches of the closet and its myriad black ensembles. 

Zari tugs the tank top over her head, her hair thoroughly mussed. She gestures vaguely to her torso, blinking up at Sara for approval. “Good now?”

“Hmm. Hang on,” Sara says. She unfastens her necklace and slips it around Zari’s neck, the gold pendant glowing against her brown skin. “Perfect. You can borrow one of my leather jackets, too.”

“Is there some reason you’re treating me like a Barbie tonight, Sara?” Zari asks, her eyes narrowed.

“Nope,” Sara says blithely. “Maybe I just miss playing dress up. Can you find me a brush?"

"Yeah. You're going to give me a SparkNotes of the book, right?"

"Be careful what you wish for," Sara says grimly. "Sit down."

Forty-five minutes of intensive hairstyling and plot summarizing later, they’re at the Time Bureau under the pretenses of picking Ava and Nora up. Zari had asked why they weren’t just all meeting at Mona's apartment (who said she was making deconstructed pasta for dinner, whatever the _hell_ that means) instead, and Sara didn’t really have a good answer for that, so she shoved Zari’s tablet in her general direction and pretended to be occupied with flying the jumpship.

“Okay,” Sara says, checking her phone, lit up with notifications from Ava. ( _comms aren’t working!!,_ then, _seriously we can’t hear you,_ and finally, _Sara Lance. Did you MUTE me?_ ) She texts back: _didnt mute you probably definitely a malfunction someone find nate we’re here! xx._ “I’m going to go get Ava, and I texted Mona to tell her we’re on the way, but do you think you can find Nora? She isn’t answering my messages.”

“Sure!” Zari agrees. 

“Great,” Sara says nonchalantly. “I think Ava mentioned that her new desk is pretty close to Nate’s office, actually. You might check down that way.”

“Roger that,” Zari says. She pauses, fiddling with her rings like she always does when she’s nervous. She offers Sara a tiny smile. “By the way, thanks for helping me get ready. That was fun.”

“It _was_ fun,” Sara says, and means it, even if she’d had an ulterior motive. She’s still always inordinately charmed when Zari throws out so much as an iota of genuine emotion. “And you look gorgeous, if I do say so myself.”

“Hush,” Zari says fondly, a wash of pink blossoming across her cheeks. “I’m going now.”

“Meet us in Ava's office when you're done!” Sara calls after her. She waits until Zari’s around the corner, and then she taps her earpiece and says, “Ray, you’re up.”

“On it,” Ray says immediately, because he’s Ray and was judiciously monitoring the link for activity even when Sara had it muted. “Flushing the grouse out of the underbrush!”

“ _What_ ,” Sara and Ava say in unison.

There’s the faint sounds of Ray creeping down the hall. “When you want to shoot a grouse, you have to flush it out of the—I mean, really, guys, you can’t just go around firing into the underbrush and _assuming_ you’re going to hit something.”

Sara starts off towards Ava’s office, navigating the familiar perils of the Time Bureau, where the only risks include bumping into an inattentive desk jockey carrying an overfilled coffee cup or a trainee who doesn't have their handling certification towing a magical creature. “You do a lot of grouse hunting, Ray?”

There’s a long pause. “I’m a man of the world, Sara. I watch _Downton Abbey_.”

“I thought they hunted pheasants on that show, not grouse,” Ava interrupts. 

“Oh my _God_ ,” Ray says. “What are you going to say next, _quail?_ ”

“Yes,” says Ava. “Or partridges?”

“Ruffed grouse are sometimes incorrectly called partridges, Ava, but a grouse by any other name is still—”

“I’m going to shoot you if you say grouse again,” Sara says. “Can you please just go find Nate?”

“You know, _Nate_ likes my metaphors,” Ray says irately. Then, in a whisper: "Oh, he's here!" 

“Ray? Coming to say goodnight? Just the bro I wanted to see!” says Nate’s faint voice. 

Sara turns off her audio so she doesn’t have to hear their weird banter and throws open Ava’s office door.

Ava looks up from her computer, her eyes sparkling with warmth. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to mute or hang up on me anymore, Sara.”

“Babe,” Sara says, electing to ignore that in the interest of fostering harmony and peace. (Let it be noted that Sara is a natural diplomat.) She slides around Ava’s desk and drops unceremoniously into her lap. “Oh my God. I’m exhausted.”

“I’m doing things,” Ava protests, the statement belied by how she slides her arms around Sara’s waist and squeezes. “Important things.”

“I can be things,” Sara says slyly. “You can do me.”

“Quiet, you,” Ava hums, kissing Sara’s temple lightly. “Why are you exhausted?”

"Well, I'm not exhausted if you want to do me,” Sara says, tilting her face up for another kiss.

“I told you, we can’t do that in my office anymore. It’s just not the same after Hank wandered in.”

“He never knew I was here,” Sara pouts. “You’re no fun.”

“If no fun keeps you from being fired for public indecency, then yeah, I’m no fun.”

Sara rolls her eyes. “Fine. I’m exhausted because of Ray’s grouse-talk, and also because magical makeover moments—”

“MMMs,” Ava says.

“No, and fuck you,” Sara says firmly. “Because makeovers take a lot of effort, is what I was going to say before someone rudely interrupted. _And_ because I finished _The Woman Who Got Stabbed_ before I came here and I found the ending really anti-climactic.”

“Madness,” Ava says. She props her chin on Sara’s shoulder and squints at her screen. “I loved the ending. I thought humanity was just what we needed to see from the detective after so much emotional repression.”

“Are you answering emails while I’m in your _lap_?”

“It’s equipment requisitions. I have to approve them for all the new agents in the probationary period,” Ava mumbles, clicking on something that Sara can’t bring herself to care about. She tugs on one of Sara’s curls with her free hand. “It doesn’t mean I can’t pay attention to your completely wrong opinions about Detective J.D. Hardboyle.”

“Well, since we’re on the topic, don’t you think his name is a little on the nose? It’s ham-fisted, Ava.”

“It is not _ham-fisted_ , it is _genius_ satire of the archetypal noir protagonist!”

Sara cranes her neck to look dubiously at her. “You’re kidding. If it’s satire, then the author isn’t in on her own joke!"

“Save it for book club,” Ava says sweetly, in a tone that means they've hit an impasse and she doesn't want to give in.

"Whatever you say," Sara grumbles. "Should we check on Ray?"

“Couldn’t hurt. It _has_ been a minute,” Ava says. 

“Ray? Is our fowl friend out of the underbrush?” Sara asks. Ava pinches her side, presumably in retaliation for pun.

“For the record, I _love_ that you’re going with me on this,” Ray says. “I caught Nate in the break room and redirected him back towards his office, so he should bump right into Zari if she’s around there looking for Nora. I’m gonna—” A pause, and then, “Okay, I can see him going down the hall, and—guys, this is not a drill.”

“What?” Sara says sharply. “Did something happen?”

“ _The grouse has landed_.”

“Ooooh-kay,” Ava says, kissing the top of Sara’s head. “To be fair, babe, you should’ve expected this when you brought him in on this.”

“I am not the one who _put him_ _on comms_ ,” Sara sighs. “Ray, get the hell out of there, please. You’re gonna ruin the moment!”

“Aye-aye, cap’n,” Ray says. “Have fun at book club!”

“We’ll debrief later,” Sara says. “Don’t think I’m not going to address flagrant misuse of melodrama and avian puns.”

Ray disconnects his comms link with what Sara thinks is a brazen disregard for authority.

“What the hell am I gonna do with these kids?” she huffs, tipping her head back onto Ava’s shoulder.

“You’ll figure it out,” Ava says affectionately.

“Can I help you decide which rookie agent gets a laser pistol and which one doesn’t to cheer me up?”

“No, but you can look over my shoulder and _pretend_ that's what you're doing while we wait for Zari."

"Sold," Sara says. "Can we discuss the fact that Agent _Wheeler_ is requisitioning extra weapons? Wheeler who heats up fish in the communal microwave? _He_ thinks he should get a grenade stash?"

"You listen when I complain about Wheeler?"

"Babe. Seriously. Wheeler sucks."

"Fine. You can help me pick."

And _that_ is why Sara is an expert on all things romantic.

(It's worth noting that one of the requests is from Gary, who has lost three time couriers in as many months. Sara very nearly convinces Ava to permanently suspend his equipment privileges.)

_///_

Meanwhile, an unsuspecting Zari is wandering the halls of the Time Bureau looking for Nora. And really, she thinks to herself as she sidles past a gaggle of agents looking warily at her, don't these people have social lives? The building is still _crawling_ with black suits, all of them reeking of break room coffee and the stench of bureaucracy. Maybe she should ask Ava if night shifts count as cruel and unusual punishment. Is that the kind of question you can pose during book club? (Historically, Zari has never been the kind of person to go to book clubs.)

She pulls out her phone to text Nora— _i have been summoned to get you for book club and you are HARD to find. wya??_ —and keeps walking, more than a little oblivious to her surroundings. Actually, in retrospect, Zari’s life might be a little less like those bad romcoms that Ray and Ava love so much if she spent any time at all paying attention to where she was going.

It is because she’s so engrossed in picking the right emoji to passive aggressively send to Nora—not that it matters, because Nora doesn’t really understand emojis anyway—that she doesn’t notice Nate trotting down the hall holding a mug that says _CASE OF THE MONDAYS_ on it in large letters (a gift from Ray, _obviously_ ). Nate, of course, sees her immediately. (Clear sight lines courtesy of MNAZH.)

“Zari?”

“Oh, fuck,” Zari mutters under her breath. She stows her phone in her pocket and looks up, trying and failing to suppress a smile at the sight of Nate in his fancy suit, the only standard deviation from the Bureau uniform being a tiny Starfleet pin on his lapel. “Good evening, G-man.”

“You wound me,” Nate says, pressing a hand to his heart. “Seriously, Zee, I’m the same old Nate you know and love.”

“And tolerate. Know and tolerate,” Zari corrects serenely. 

“Ouch,” Nate says. He takes a second look at her and shifts nervously. “Um, by the way, you look—you look—”

“Dumb?” Zari offers, gesturing to her leather jacket. “Sara dressed me like her mini-me today, and I frankly haven’t recovered.”

“Umm,” Nate says eloquently. _Dumb_ is definitely the word he was going to use to describe how all the black she’s wearing makes her look beautiful in a dangerous sort of way, like a freshly sharpened knife or a polished gun. _Dumb_ is exactly what her hair looks like, a river of dark curls spilling over her shoulders and framing her face perfectly. _Dumb_ is the curve of her mouth, lush and soft. _Dumb_ is the way her eyes glint with warmth and amusement, completely focused on him like there’s no one else so deserving of her attention. _Dumb_ is this train of thought when Nate was sure he'd convinced himself that Zari is his friend and nothing else. “Sure, dumb.”

“Well, don’t go telling anyone I let Sara use me like a dress-up doll. It won’t be good for my reputation,” Zari says. There’s something that’s not quite the same about him tonight, but she can’t put her finger on what it is. 

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Nate says, fiddling with his tie. His voice cracks, just a tiny bit. Zari grins at him, and he smiles back, but—something’s just not _right_ , she can feel it. “Hey, I’d better get going. There’s something I have to take care of.”

It’s not in her nature to pry, especially not when something might be emotionally fraught. Nevertheless, she feels her mouth move before her brain can catch up.

“Hey, Nate?”

“Hmm?” he says. He’s looking past her towards his office, his attention clearly elsewhere.

“Is something up? I don’t know, like—are you okay? Sorry, I’m being nosy, but—”

“No,” Nate says abruptly. “I mean, yes.”

“What?” she says, confused. 

He groans. “I don’t know. Okay, we found something, but… I’m probably not supposed to tell you?”

“Why?” she says suspiciously.

“Because it’s, like, weird. Weirder than usual. Uh. Okay. But I _want_ to tell you.”

“So why don’t you?”

“Because—well—what if you rat me out to Ava?”

“You can trust me,” she says, because it’s the truth. “Nate, you should know by now that I’m on your side.”

It’s the right answer; he looks immensely relieved.

“Okay,” he says. “Right. Do you have a second, then?”

“Of course I do,” Zari says, thinking guiltily of book club. She digs her phone out of her pocket and sends Sara a text: _something came up. don’t think i can make it tonight—is that okay? so sorry and i’m in next time, i promise!_

Sara’s response is instantaneous: _all good zee! tell Something i say hello! ;)_

Zari groans audibly. Nate raises an eyebrow at her. “It’s not important. Let’s just go.”

_///_

A few minutes later, they’re in the containment facility, standing in front of a cell. Nate takes a deep breath and presses his palm to the control pad. With a hydraulic hiss, the door slides open.   
“C’mon,” he says. “This is it.”

Zari follows him in wordlessly, prepared for the worst.

It’s odd. The containment cell is cool, almost cold, even though they’re normally perfectly regulated at seventy-two degrees. But the weirdest part is the enormous tank behind the force field. Suspended in it is a formless, colorless mass, so translucent that Zari has to strain to pick out where it ends and the water begins. 

"What _is_ that?" she asks, squinting, stepping closer to stare.

"I don't _know_ ," Nate says delightedly. "But I think we're _friends_."

"You're what now?" Zari says, swivelling to stare at him.

"Agnes and I—"

" _Agnes?_ "

Nate gives her a stern look. "If you're going to be judgy, I'm kicking you out."

“I’m not being judgy, I’m questioning the name ‘Agnes’ for a genderless blob.”

“I’m not _imposing_ anything on her! She _responds_ to it!”

Zari subsides, chastened. She’s just going to have to go along with it. "Fine. I'm sorry." Feeling like an idiot, she waves at the tank—at _Agnes._ (Whatever the hell that means.) "Uh, Agnes, I don't know if you can hear me, but sorry that I was an asshole. It's…nice to meet you?"

" _Thank_ you," Nate says, relieved. "Anyway, I don't know how to tell you, so I'll just show you."

"Show me what?"

"Just get the lights, okay?" he says, turning back to the tank. He starts talking to it, too low for her to hear, and it's—weird, alright, it's very weird, but here they are.

"Okay," she agrees, more to herself than anyone else. She finds the control panel on the wall and taps in a command. The fluorescents overhead wink out one by one; the last pool of light disappears as she starts to walk back to Nate and she feels suddenly unmoored, no idea which direction to go in the unfamiliar room. "Nate?"

Footsteps, the quiet rustling of his suit, and then—his hand in hers, his palm warm, his grip sure. He squeezes once. "Right here."

"Oh," Zari breathes. "There you are."

"Agnes has agreed to show you something."

"She—it—Agnes has?"

"Well, either that or she's hungry. Or she's going to kill us. We don’t have the communication thing down to an exact science. It should be interesting, no matter what."

"I… Alright," Zari says. "So she's gonna… When?"

"She's just impatient," Nate says, and his tone of voice makes it clear that he's not talking to Zari. "It's all ‘show me, don't tell me’ in this town, you know, Agnes? She'll come around."

"Okay, don't be _mean_ ," Zari begins, but she stops. Stands still. 

Something's… Something is different. A thrumming, pulsing rumble beneath her feet, like—like the beat of a heart, she realizes, rhythmic and steady. It's radiating out from the tank. She doesn't know how close they're standing, can't tell in the pitch dark, but it's as if something— _Agnes_ —is reaching out. The vibrations lap only at the toes of her boots at first, but then it's the whole floor, a not-unpleasant buzzing that she can feel in her bones.

" _What_ ," Zari whispers, her fingers tightening around Nate's.

Of course, it gets weirder.

There’s another moment where it’s only the silence and the sibilant buzz of Agnes, and then—

“Did you turn the lights back on, or something?” Zari asks quietly. She swears that the wall across the room is getting lighter, breaking through the darkness.

“Nope,” says Nate knowingly, a smile in his voice.

“That’s—is that _Agnes?_ ” she says wonderingly. Nate doesn’t say anything, but the buzzing peaks, just once, a firm _zzzzz_ that starts at the ground by her shoes and tingles up her legs. “I’ll take that a yes.”

The light starts to move across the walls, filling the entire room with a wash of silver. It shifts to purple, then blue, then black, and back again, all the shades mixing together, until finally it’s a kaleidoscope of colors. As they watch, little pinpricks of white light pop up in mid air, some of them clustered around each other in swirling patterns, some of them twinkling all by themselves. There’s blossoms of emerald and goldenrod yellow that intertwine, sparkling at the center, illuminating the planes of Nate’s face in strange, glittering light. At the center of it all, regal in her tank, Agnes seems to glow, argent brilliance filling the water around her.

It’s weird and it’s like nothing Zari’s ever seen before and it’s _magical_.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Zari says. 

“Right?” he says triumphantly. “Told you you wouldn’t believe me.”

“I believed you,” she says petulantly. “Even when you were shit talking me to Agnes.”

“Agnes and I were having an important discussion _unrelated to you_ ,” Nate insists.

There’s a long, low vibration, not unlike a richly amused chuckle.

“ _Et tu_ ,” Nate mutters under his breath.

“I don’t think she’s read Shakespeare,” Zari says. 

“Agnes contains multitudes,” he counters. “You can’t define the depths of her knowledge.”

“Or Whitman,” Zari adds, rolling her eyes. “So...the lights are pretty, but what _is_ it?”

“I’m not really sure,” Nate says. “It looks like—well, it looks like stars to me, but some of them aren’t constellations I recognize off hand. But,” he pauses to point. “Doesn’t that look like a nebula to you?”

Zari squints at the wall, tilting her head. It does, and the dots of light hovering just over his head could be a binary star, and the string of them by the door could be—if you look just so—something like the Big Dipper, even. It all feels very familiar, really, like Agnes has tapped into her own memories rather than showing them something new. She tries to think of every _X-Files_ episode she’s ever seen (read: every episode Mona’s ever forced her to watch) in case that proves useful. “Where did you say you found her?”

“They brought her back from a submarine expedition in the Atlantic in 1897. The magic-o-meter had a big blip. Some researchers from that time described her doing something similar to this—lights playing on the water, buzzing strong enough to rock the ship. Ava says there’s no way to determine where she actually came from and we have to move her for observation, but… I think she has a home she wants to get back to.”

Agnes vibrates pointedly, as if to emphasize the truth of that statement.

If someone had told Zari even a week ago that she'd be holding hands with Nate Heywood in a dark containment cell while a bioluminescent blob gave them what’s essentially a planetarium show, she'd have sent them to the medbay for Gideon to check on. But now she can't think of anywhere she'd rather be.

And really, who is she to doubt this? She deals in absolutes and certainties, binary code and things that you can switch on and off, things that slot into their proper places and have names she knows and do things she can _control_ but—hasn't her whole life been about straddling the line between the knowable and the unquantifiable?

She's a hacker and every inch a modern woman, but she wears an ancestral totem that lets her harness the power of air. She's a cynic, but she fasts during Ramadan and she still prays—not as often as her mother would have liked, but often enough. She’s always thought of herself as a lone wolf, but lately she’s done nothing but sacrifice herself for the greater good of a team.

_(Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.)_

It occurs to her that perhaps she and Agnes are not so different.

“Okay,” Zari says contemplatively. “Well, I’m on board. But...how long do we have to figure it out?”

“That’s the problem. Ava wants her moved to a more secure observation facility in two days, and after the whole mess with Hank, I feel like transferring her is the same thing as throwing her to the wolves—the wolves in this case being the Bureau’s jack booted thugs.”

“Aren’t _you_ one of the Bureau’s jack booted thugs?”

“No!” Nate yelps. “I’m—”

“A wingtip shoe-d thug?”

“An independent agent trying to cure the pestilence of government overreach from the inside is what I was going to say, actually.”

“Agree to disagree,” she says, just to make him glare at her. “So I’ll cancel book club, and you get Ray. You _have_ told Ray, right?”

He winces. “Well, I was _gonna_ when I ran into him this evening, but he was all weird, so—”

“You told me first and not Ray?” Zari asks, something warm blossoming in her chest.

“Shut up,” Nate says sheepishly. “Don’t mention it, he’ll be so pissed at me.”

She grins. “Cross my heart. Okay, so call him. Then we’ll portal to the library, ‘cause Sara’s still off-ship, and try to figure it all out?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Also, get pizza.”

Nate mock-salutes her. “Copy that.”

It’s not a Heywood-Tomaz plan without pizza.

(It doesn’t occur to her until they leave that Nate is still holding her hand. It’s not weird, though, right? She just didn’t want to lose him in the dark. That’s all.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so obviously weekly updates don't work well for me, and i'm moving into college in two days so they're going to become even more unlikely, but i've got big plans for the rest of this story, and i'm not abandoning it any time soon. thanks for being patient with me. thanks as always to V, who fielded 16 consecutive panicked texts about the plausibility of my plans, let me rant about nate and zari for 20 minutes while we sat in my car, and went over this chapter with a fine tooth comb to make it make sense. also, thanks to abiha, who encourages me constantly and has the patience of job. i'm on twit @vcikyrie and tumblr @irltrash, holler if you need me! kudos and comments keep me alive. till next time!


	4. mission impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ray, throw something at him for lying,” Zari says.  
>  “That’s so mean,” says Ray, but he obediently takes a figurine off of the desk and hefts it.  
>  “Not that!” Nate yelps. “That’s a fourth century fertility totem from Andalucia!”  
>  “I thought it was a weird looking Funko Pop,” says Zari, grinning when Nate glares at her. 
> 
> in which there is pizza, constantine, the bermuda triangle, and unresolved sexual tension.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back! nothing much to say except sorry for the long break and i hope everyone is having a lovely fall season! thanks as always to abiha, whose patience in hype-manning me never ceases to astound.

After a phone call to Sara—which was filled with a lot of innuendos about Nate that Zari did her best to ignore—and another to Ray—which was devoid of innuendos but filled with thinly veiled disappointment at the failures of his matchmaking machinations—and one last one to Domino’s, they’re all set up in the Waverider’s library with several pizzas, garlic bread, a mountain of maps and books about unusual aquatic life, and oddly enough, John Constantine.

“Did anyone else forget he’s been rooming in here, or is that just me?” Nate asks, eyeing Constantine nervously.

The aforementioned squatter is sitting upside down in a wingback chair—notably, Nate’s _ favorite _ wingback chair—shirtless and shuffling through a sheaf of papers covered in dark red ink with slightly burnt edges. “There’s not a lot of open space on this ship, love, so here I am.”

“Why do you have to sit like that?” Ray says. “Where’s your shirt? Are those papers written in blood?”

“Many questions, all of them relevant,” Nate says. “But we need to stay on task. John, lose the weird shit and help us brainstorm, or I’ll have to eject you.”

“I’m  _ busy _ ,” Constantine says dismissively.

Nate shoots a frantic glance at Zari, who picks up a paper airplane that Ray has made out of a map of the coast of Spain and takes aim, deftly knocking the papers out of Constantine’s hand. He glares at her balefully. She smiles. “Listen to Nate and make yourself useful, John.”

“I’m always useful,” says Constantine, which Zari wants to disagree with (but cannot actually do so in good faith). He slides out of his chair and comes to peer what she’s laid out on the desk. “I’m eye candy, aren’t I?”

“Hear, hear,” Nate says mildly. Constantine winks at him and Nate smiles broadly.

“Be that as it may,” Zari says, ignoring the odd twinge in her stomach. (If she were paying attention, she’d notice that it’s something like jealousy, though of who, she’s not sure.) “I think we need a little more than that from you.”

“Fine,” Constantine concedes. He runs his fingers along the edge of a map. “What’s all this?”

It takes them a few minutes to debrief Constantine, and Ray along with him. They pull up videos of Agnes floating in her tank, the mission report from where she’d been found, and what paltry eyewitness accounts there are. Ray takes scrupulous notes because of who he is as a person, and Constantine looks broodily intelligent because that’s really all he’s good for.

“So,” Ray says contemplatively, looking up from his laptop. “I have a working theory about the vibrations and the lights—bioluminescence is a given, maybe manipulation of the medial forebrain bundle and some neuroptic nerves, that kind of thing, but it’s probably more important that we figure out where to take her back. Not that I wouldn’t  _ love  _ to run a battery of tests on her—”

Nate holds up a hand. “No tests. She’s not an animal in a zoo.She’s our friend, and we need to get her home.”

“I’ll never not be impressed by that big heart of yours, buddy,” Ray says sappily. Zari and Constantine stare at each other and telepathically share their hatred of said sappiness. “Well, if we think she’s projecting stars, then—”

“We should get star charts,” Nate finishes, shooting Ray finger guns. “I agree. I’ll pull some out of the hold. It might help us figure out a rough location.

“And are we sure we shouldn’t bring Ava back in on this?”

“What? Ray, yes, we’re  _ sure _ ,” Nate insists. “Much as I love her, Ava can’t contain her inner bureaucrat. She’d want to talk protocol and rules and—”

“I’m just saying, she might have something useful to contribute!”

“Ray, I’m very fond of your omega-3 enriched brain, but—”

“What if that thing is from Atlantis?” Constantine interrupts, with an authoritative air that seems utterly at odds with the absurdity of his statement.

“If she’s what now?” Zari says blankly.

“I mean...I guess we can’t rule it out,” Nate says, turning to Constantine as if he intends to evaluate this hypothesis in good faith, and for a moment Zari is struck, like she always is, by how eminently bizarre their lives are. “But I was thinking—is it crazy to think she’s an alien? Because I was reading about this planet in the—”

“Alien!” Constantine scoffs. “No, mate, think it through. Use that pretty little head of yours.”

“At least he thinks I’m pretty,” Nate mutters grudgingly.

“Who wouldn’t?” Ray replies soothingly.

“As I was  _ saying _ ,” Constantine says. “All the creatures we’ve dealt with so far have been from our known mythology. It seems odd to me that we’d suddenly stumble upon  _ aliens _ . And where else would you get a giant jellyfish with a taste for the celestial, if not Atlantis?”

“How can you deny the possibility of aliens when we’re talking about a giant jellyfish?” Zari says incredulously. Nate opens his mouth. “And don’t correct me about her being a jellyfish, it’s a reasonable guess, we don’t know  _ what  _ she is.” Nate closes his mouth again.

“Observe,” says Constantine. “Agatha—”

“Agnes,” Ray corrects automatically, which makes Nate grin triumphantly.

“ _ Agnes _ ,” Constantine concedes. “Was right on the border of the Mediterrean, putting on a light show in the middle of the ocean. She was closer to the surface than you’d expect a creature of her size and rarity to be, which suggests that she’s just like the rest of the magical creatures— _ lost _ . And she doesn’t strike me as the type to get lost  _ easily _ . That explains the chronological displacement.  _ So _ —”

“But if she was in the Mediterrean, that doesn’t exactly square with  _ Atlantis _ ,” Zari interjects. “Nate, am I crazy? Say something. You’re, like, furrowing your brow melodramatically.”

“A formidable furrow,” Ray agrees. “He’s thinking.”

“Well,” Nate says, and just going by his tone, Zari has a sudden and terrible feeling that they’re going to wind up in the middle of the ocean some time soon looking for the Lost City of At-fucking-lantis. “Gideon, could we see the coordinates of Agnes’s last known location on a map, please?”

“Certainly,” says Gideon helpfully.

Zari swivels in her chair to look at the screen by the bookshelves. There’s a blinking dot on the map, right off the coast of Spain, near somewhere called Almeria. 

Nate snaps his fingers. “I can’t believe I was so short-sighted. Look! The Pillars of Hercules.”

Zari levels a long, hard stare at him, the kind of stare she used to use on Professor Stein and often uses on Ray, the kind that means,  _ just because you have a PhD in something incredibly specific does not mean you have to make me feel like an idiot,  _ and also,  _ fuck off. _

Nate interprets this stare correctly and says, “Sorry. In Plato’s  _ Critias _ , the origin of the Atlantis myth, he posits that the city is somewhere past the Pillars of Hercules, or as we know it today, the Strait of Gibraltar. Agnes was in the Mediterrean, yeah, but when she was displaced in time, she might’ve gotten caught in a storm or a particularly strong current and drifted past the Strait. The point is that she might have _ started _ in the Atlantic, which means—”

“Means that I was right,” Constantine finishes. “I’m Sherlock bloody Holmes.”

“By the way, Mr. Holmes, do we think it’s possible for you to put on a shirt before we continue with this rogue investigation?” Ray says nervously. "I get that it's a part of your picaresque charm, but—"

“Why? Do you find it distracting, big man?” asks Constantine, a poisonous smile blooming on his face.

“I don’t know if there’s a right answer to that,” croaks Ray.

“Moving on,” Nate says hastily. “So if we want to take her home, we just have to find it.”

“And by  _ it _ , you mean  _ Atlantis _ ?” Ray says. For once, he actually sounds a little bit skeptical. Zari can’t believe it’s taken them this long to butt up against the limits of his positivity and faith in the power of teamwork. “The place they call the Lost City? The one with  _ lost  _ in the name?”

“Yep!” Nate says sunnily.

“Cool,” Zari says. “I saw the Disney movie one time—it’s technically considered vintage in 2042—so that’s my knowledge base.”

Nate grimaces. “Gideon, can you find my copy of  _ The Antedeluvian World? _ We’ll need Donnelly’s expertise for this.”

“I believe it is in the lower corner of the mahogany bookcase, Dr. Heywood, near  _ Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, _ ” Gideon says from overhead.

“Perfect,” Nate says, and scurries off to go dig it up. “You guys get started, and I’ll bring back Donelly and the star charts, too.”

“Fine,” Zari says grudgingly, because it looks like the runaway train has already started rolling and she might as well get on board. “I can get satellite imagery to determine which spots in the Atlantic would have the best vantage point for stars like the ones Agnes projected, and Gideon, can we start a sim to triangulate potential coordinates if I design chronoparameters with you?”

“Of course, Miss Tomaz,” says Gideon obediently.

“Well, I guess we’re going where no man has gone before,” Ray says, with this smug little smile that means he definitely thinks his Star Trek reference is the height of intellectualism and not cliche at all. Zari bravely resists the urge to throw a packet of parmesan from Domino’s at him. "How hard could it be?" he adds, brimming with the confidence belonging only to people who almost always manage to succeed in spite of their sometimes overwhelming incompetence.

As always, such a statement turns out to be unwisely tempting fate.

_ /// _

Four hours, two pizzas, and one shirt for Constantine later, they’re making the kind of slow progress that could only be expected considering that Zari’s experience with Atlantis is primarily courtesy of an animated movie and the one paragraph of  _ Critias  _ that she read before asking Gideon for the SparkNotes, Constantine has a severe aversion to working with other people, Ray is easily vexed when science and magic are at odds with each other, and Nate has the intense focus on useless minutiae of a true academic.

“Okay, so  _ before  _ I tell you what I found, do we think it would be feasible to—”

“No, we do not have time to go back and hunt down Proclus to ask him where Atlantis was," Zari says sternly, glaring at Nate’s copy of Proclus’s Platonic commentary. He guiltily slides it under the desk.

"Look, I  _ know  _ his work was lost to antiquity, but he mentions islands in the exterior sea past the Strait that track with our notion of Atlantis!" he says insistently. "Give me five minutes with the guy and we'll be on a boat to take Agnes home,  _ easy _ ."

“Speaking of,” Ray says, looking up from his laptop. “We  _ are  _ going to need a boat, so I was thinking I’d see if we can retrofit the jumpship. We’d need to cover some of the vents and reinforce the plating on the windows to make them watertight, among other things, but it might be possible. We could courier to DC to get it back from Sara and return it before she even knew it was gone. Also, Zari, is there any way you can access her cell remotely?”

“Obviously,” Zari says, already fumbling for her tablet.

“If she really is from Atlantis, she probably lives a couple thousand leagues deep, so I bet she’s used to very cold temperatures. I think we should bump the salinity of her water and drop the temperature in there by maybe ten degrees,” Ray says. “I want to monitor her vitals and see if that improves anything. And can you get me the dimensions of the tank?”

“Anything in the name of schmience,” Zari says absently, her fingers flying across the screen.

“What about Diodorus Siculus?” Nate suggests, and he’s got this twinkle in his eye that Zari just  _ knows _ means that half of his academic posturing is just to fuck with Constantine. 

“Bloody hell,” says Constantine, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “For the last time, love, there’s absolutely no way we have time to track down all these fucking philosophers.”

“Siculus was a historian, actually,” Nate says.

Constantine stares meaningfully at Zari, as if to say  _ please, God, let me out of here. _ (Or maybe it says  _ I need a fucking cigarette _ .) Zari studiously avoids the meaningful stare and has some garlic bread instead. 

“Oh,  _ fine _ ,” Nate concedes. “I do appreciate all of you rolling with my crusade, so I guess I'll just tell you that I’ve got a star chart that looks very promising, but I don’t think you’re going to like where it leads.”

“As much as I want to say that we’re too advanced to need analog charts, I have to defer to you on this,” Zari garbles around a mouthful of bread.

“Crumbs, love,” Constantine says, sounding vaguely disgruntled.

She takes his proffered napkin and clears her throat. “I’ve been looking at satellite scans and that sort of thing, but there’s a couple of blind spots around the Atlantic that are just fuzz and static when it comes to astronavigation, so I’m all ears, Nate.”

“Yeeeah,” Nate says sheepishly. In all of recorded history, nothing good has ever come of a sentence beginning with  _ yeeeah _ . “About that. I think the Lost City of Atlantis might be smack dab in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”

_ /// _

“What do you think Nate and Zari are doing right now?” Sara asks quietly, grinning at Ava.

Despite Zari’s absence, book club went on as planned, so they’re in Mona’s kitchen, getting more pasta. Peals of laughter ring out from the living room, where Nora and Mona are huddled over  _ The Woman Who Got Stabbed _ . 

Ava rolls her eyes. “You really are  _ quite  _ the romantic, Captain Lance.”

“Don’t make me misuse this serving fork, Director Sharpe” Sara says airily, winking at Ava. “Come  _ on _ . We make Zee look super hot, and then she cancels book club and runs off with him? I guess magical makeover moments actually work.”

“Remind me to tell Ray you said that,” Ava says, grinning. 

“He’ll be  _ insufferable _ ,” Sara says. “But he might deserve the bragging rights. Be honest. Do you think they’re banging?”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure they’re having a lot of fun,” says Ava demurely, which makes Sara smirk.

“Oh, I’m  _ sure  _ they are.”

_ /// _

“We are  _ not  _ taking the jumpship into the middle of the Bermuda Triangle!” shouts Zari. “Are you out of your  _ mind? _ The  _ Bermuda Triangle? _ Where giant fucking  _ crabs  _ ate Amelia Earhart? Where electronics don’t  _ work?  _ And you want to take an incredibly delicate piece of machinery straight  _ into it? _ ”

“To be fair, the coconut crabs theory is mostly conjecture,” Nate says. “Her plane is under, like, twenty thousand feet of water. There’s no way she washed up on an island and was eaten by crabs.”

"We don't even know for sure that Atlantis  _ is _ in the Triangle!"

"In order to provide clarity on the issue, I feel it is relevant to note that simulation results  _ do _ indicate a nonzero chance that the Bermuda Triangle is a potential location for Atlantis," Gideon says politely.

“ _ Ray!” _ Zari hollers, her eyebrows threatening to shoot past her hairline. “Say something smart!”

“Well, we literally  _ can’t  _ take the jumpship into the middle of the Bermuda Triangle, because Agnes’s tank won’t fit into it,” Ray says, trying to sound somewhat comforting. “So there’s that.”

“Oh, fuck me,” Nate says miserably. “We’re gonna have to find another boat to get her on?”

“Hopefully one that won’t break and  _ strand us _ ,” Zari snaps.

“Just to add my tuppence,” Constantine says.

“It’s  _ two cents _ ,” Zari says wanly.

“Is it? Anyway, I’m also not rather hot on the idea of dying in the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Thank fuck,” she groans.

“I actually had another thought,” Ray says. “And once again, you’re not going to like it.”

“Please say we’re not going to the Bermuda Triangle,” says Zari.

“Oh, no, we’re going there. And we might have to do it in an ARGUS submarine.”

Zari’s expression can only be described as thunderous.

“Let me get this straight, Raymond,” she says. Ray swallows audibly. “We’re going to break a magical creature out of one high security government holding cell and take it to the Bermuda Triangle, and we’re going to do so in a submarine owned by an extrajudicial agency that represents the worst of the fascist kleptocracy’s overreaches and, oh yeah,  _ killed my fucking family in the future?! _ ”

“Um,” Ray says. “Well, yeah. Also, we’ll have to steal it? So, there’s that.”

“Over my dead body!”

“Ooh-kay,” Nate says. “Time out. Can I get you in the corner for a sec?”

“Fine,” Zari snaps. She shoots a stern look at Ray. “Figure something else out while I’m gone.”

“Sure!” Ray says. The moment she turns around, he mouths,  _ we’re definitely going with Plan A _ at Constantine. Wordlessly, Constantine digs out a flask from one of the desk drawers and offers it to Ray.

Nate tugs Zari outside of the library and lets the doors slide shut behind them. “Hi,” he says. “I know this is kind of intense. Are you okay?”

“Not really,” says Zari. Her chest feels tight, her breath catching in her throat. “I don’t know if I can work with ARGUS, Nate. I know  _ exactly _ what they do behind the scenes and  _ exactly  _ what they represent and—God, I’m scared.”

“Okay,” Nate says. He puts his hands on her shoulders. He’s just sort of staring at her and his eyes are warm and dark and soft and she doesn’t know what to do. “Do you want to just...not? Because I won’t  _ make _ you do this. I would never force you to.”

She bites her lip. No, she doesn’t want to do this. No one in her position would. But—there’s the matter of Neron. He’s going to use every magical creature he can find for the worst possible purposes, and she can’t let that happen to Agnes. She won’t. So maybe she needs a push.

She looks up at Nate. “Convince me?”

“The ARGUS of our present is not the ARGUS of your future. And I know that they’ve done things that are morally reprehensible, and if you really don’t want to go through with this, I will drop it right now and we’ll find another way. But we’re trying to save Agnes, and if ARGUS can help us keep her out of the hands of people like—people like  _ Hank _ , frankly, then I think we have to try. And wouldn’t it be poetic justice to steal from them and make something good out of it?”

She’s conflicted. She’s  _ more  _ than conflicted. But now that she’s had a moment to catch her breath, she won’t say she doesn’t see his point. And maybe she can find a way to live with it. 

“...Fine,” she says bitterly. “But I still hate them.”

“Someday we’ll figure out a way to burn them to the ground, and I’ll help you do it myself. But we have to get her home first.”

She sucks in a deep breath. Behrad would want this, she thinks. She can’t imagine her brother seeing something as special as Agnes and not doing everything he could to keep her safe. “Let’s go get it done, then.”

“Thank you, Zee. I know what this must be costing you.”

“It's not  _ that _ bad,” she says, and finds it’s truer than she realized. “Not if it’s for you.”

He squeezes her shoulders. She tries to ignore the fact that the combination of her low-necked top and the placement of his hands means that his thumb is brushing against her bare skin, a single point of sizzling contact even though the rest of his touch is chaste. It’s not important right now.

_ /// _

Fifteen minutes later, Ray’s on the phone—the interchronological equivalent of such—with one Felicity Smoak.

“Did she pick up yet?” Nate says.

“Relax,” Zari says grumpily, from where she’s hunched over her tablet. “I’m tinkering with the signal, just let it ring—”

“Oh, Felicity?" says Ray. He gives Zari a proud thumbs up.

Zari looks smugly at Nate and says crisply, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

"Zari," says Nate, wearing a very complicated expression. "Was that a  _ Star Wars  _ quote specifically for me?"

"Of course it was," she says, smiling. "Still pissed at you about the imminent submarine theft, though."

"Can you stop whatever kind of foreplay this is—doesn't work for me, by the way—and let the big man speak?" Constantine interrupts, jerking his head at Ray, who's cupped his hand around the speaker of the communicator and is looking vaguely panicked.

"Hello!  _ Oh _ . Hi, Oliver. No, it's Ray. Ray Palmer. Felicity's ex-boyfriend? Yes, sorry, of course you know which Ray Palmer."

Nate, Constantine, and Zari all share a multidirectional grimace.

Ray covers the speaker and says, "I  _ knew _ we should've done that crossover this year."

"Don't blame yourself, bud, we were busy," says Nate.

Ray jerks back to the communicator and says, "It’s—do I know what time it is there? No, I don’t, really, I’m sort of—well, I’m  _ out  _ of time. Yeah. Oh, she's asleep? Okay. Well, could you maybe wake her up? No, Oliver, I am not going to play anything by Peter Frampton down the line to try and, quote, win her back. That was only one time and I  _ told  _ you Thea got me high. No, I don't know  _ why _ , she's  _ your  _ sister, ask  _ her _ ."

"Probably should have rethought Ray as our choice of ambassador," Zari whispers grimly.

"Give him a second," Nate says loyally. "He'll do fine once he gets Felicity on the line."

"Yes, I'll wait," says Ray. He holds the device away from his ear and whispers, "Does anyone else want to talk to Oliver if he comes back? Maybe Nate, since he's used to dealing with emotionally distant men suffering from intergenerational trauma stemming from their fathers?"

"Low blow," hisses Nate. 

"The daddy issues roll off you in waves, love," Constantine says. Zari does not think this is a particularly helpful addition to the situation.

"That's not what I—oh, hel _ lo _ , Felicity," Ray says sunnily, jerking back to the communicator. "Yes, I  _ do _ know what time it is there. Oliver just told me. Well, I'm glad you're up, anyhow. Listen, I need to ask you for a  _ small _ favor. Do you remember when we worked on the plans for those EMP manipulators? Right, so I need to know if you could help me break those, and, oh, maybe a next gen submersible out of ARGUS lockup?"

There's a very long pause. Ray mouths,  _ wait for it _ , and holds the communicator away from his ear. Felicity's answering " _ WHAT _ ," is audible even through the slightly tinny speakers from across the room. 

" _ Felicity! _ " says a masculine voice—presumably Oliver—at the same volume. " _ Shh! _ "

Ray nods and puts it back to his mouth. "Yes, I know it's ridiculous. I'm a  _ what?  _ A fuck-what? A fuck _ weasel _ . I see. Alright, but can you do it? No, I didn't ask Sara if it was okay. Do you ask Oliver for permission for everything you do? I thought not. Okay, yeah." There's another long pause as he listens intently. "Give me a second," He turns to the three of them. "Felicity says she can't go  _ with  _ us, but she can help get us blueprints for the facility and a description of what we need to look for?"

"We'll take that," Nate says immediately.

"Ask her if she can clone keycards for us," Zari adds.

"Roger that," Ray agrees. "Zari wants to know if you can clone keycards for us. Actually, you two might get along quite well. She does the whole benevolent hacking about as well as you do. Zee, will you talk to her?"

"Me?" Zari says nervously, more than a little worried about fucking up Ray's already tenuous relationship with his ex-girlfriend.

"Yes, you," Ray says impatiently, and tosses the communicator at her.

"The wiring is  _ fragile! _ " Zari all but shouts, catching it clumsily. " _ Damn _ , Ray, have some respect for my craft! Fuck, sorry. Hello?"

"Hi!" says Felicity. "You must be Zari. What a pleasure."

"Likewise," Zari replies. "So, if we're breaking into ARGUS—"

"I kiiiind of already have a backdoor into their system," Felicity hedges, in the tone of someone who's been warned against such a thing before. 

A man's voice, sleepy but clearly vexed: "Felicity, John  _ said— _ "

"Yes, I know what John said!" yelps Felicity. "My husband is forgetting that he has to tacitly endorse me in all endeavors. It was in our vows."

"It was  _ not _ in our vows," says Oliver. "I would remember that."

"In sickness and in health," Felicity supplies helpfully.

"Stealing classified state secrets is not in sickness or in health," says Oliver faintly.

"It's not  _ literal _ , it's meant to be  _ a spectrum _ of situations," Felicity says irately. "State secrets, my ass. Bootlicker."

"I am not a  _ bootlicker _ ! I'm  _ trying _ not to go back to prison!"

"Sorry,  _ back  _ to prison?" Zari says.

"Yeah, long story. Anyway, I can get you in, but they're pretty good about catching onto me by now, so we'll need to get the black site's coordinates and find your blueprints so we can get you into a physical location ASAP before they wise up."

Zari is immediately a fan of how Felicity rolls with the punches. "Okay, well, what if I could cloak your signature remotely? Give you more time to poke around?"

"Theoretically, that would be great, but—"

"Trust me. I'm from twenty-three years in your future and I live on a twenty-second century time machine. Hacking ARGUS is sort of my gig."

"Definitely don't have time to unpack all of that  _ now _ , but I would  _ love  _ to grab a coffee with you someday," Felicity says reverently. "Tell me everything. Like, do robots replace humans? Do we get super good AI? Does Netflix just, like, not buffer anymore?"

"State secrets first, dishing on the future later," says Zari, and then, glancing over her shoulder at Ray's expression, "I mean, I would  _ never  _ dish on the future because that would be  _ so  _ irresponsible."

"Ray's giving you a look, isn't he?"

"Yep.”

“Thought so.”

Zari smiles innocently at him and says, “Ray, can you get us on SVTC—Stein's equivalent of it, anyway?” At Ray’s affirmative nod, she says to Felicity, “Give us ten minutes and a couple of paradox cords. Sorry, do you have those in 2019?"

"Uh,  _ no _ ," Felicity says, clearly thrilled. "Tell me more  _ immediately _ ."

"Babe, I'm going back to sleep," Oliver says in the background.

"Sorry, of course, don't wait up. I'll go to the living room to ply my illegal trade," Felicity says to him apologetically. From her tone, Zari assumes this is clearly something that happens semi-regularly.

"Love you," he says, muffled. "Try not to get arrested."

"He's a shill for the state," Felicity says to Zari. Oliver grunts, affronted. "You  _ are _ , but I love you so very much."

“Goodnight, Felicity,” says Oliver, and there’s the muffled sounds of a pillow being rearranged. "And goodnight, Zari. Don't let my wife do anything stupid."

“No promises,” Zari calls over the phone. 

Ray interrupts, “Can you help me with the tempus patch-in?”

“Someone keep Felicity on the line so we don’t lose the signal,” Zari says, and thrusts the phone at Constantine.

“Why is that  _ my  _ job—Nate, can you take the—oh, hello,” says Constantine, shooting Zari a murderous glare. “What a pleasure. Yes, it’s Constantine. John Constantine. I sound familiar? Oh, I probably feature quite heavily in your dreams, love.”

“She’s  _ married! _ ” Ray squawks at him from underneath the desk, brandishing a pair of pliers threateningly. “To a vigilante with a demagnetized moral compass and huge biceps!”

“Just his type,” says Zari drily. “Don’t tell him that, he’s gonna take the jumpship and see if they’re up for a threesome.”

Constantine snaps his fingers at Zari and grins. “I always knew you were a genius,” and then, to Felicity, “No, we aren’t talking about you. Raymond tells me you’re married, hmm? Is he nice? Open to meeting new people?”

After ten minutes of Ray and Zari working on the connection while Constantine has a heated conversation with Felicity about the existence of ghosts (tinged with a vague undercurrent of flirtatiousness that everyone tries to ignore), they’re in business. Felicity pops up on the screen with passable video and sound quality considering that the connection has to cross the temporal zone to reach them. In a way that’s vaguely reminiscent of Zari, she’s surrounded by three laptops, a tablet, her phone, and a tangle of extension cords, not unlike a pharaoh entombed with all of their worldly possessions around them.

The moment she sees Constantine, she says, “Oh, I just  _ knew  _ you’d have frosted tips.”

Constantine makes an affronted, pained noise. “They are  _ not  _ frosted tips! I’m a natural blond!”

“Ray, throw something at him for lying,” Zari says.

“That’s so mean,” says Ray, but he obediently takes a figurine off of the desk and hefts it.

“Not  _ that! _ ” Nate yelps. “That’s a fourth century fertility totem from Andalucia!”

“I  _ thought  _ it was a weird looking Funko Pop,” says Zari, grinning when Nate glares at her. 

He snatches it back from Ray. “It’s not a  _ Funko Pop _ , it is polished porphyry, and it could  _ literally  _ kill him if you threw it at him! Also, it’s irreplaceable.”

“Maybe it would just make him extremely fertile,” Zari says, opening her tablet. “Or virile?”

“I need no help in that area, thanks very much,” Constantine says primly. “Please don’t bludgeon me to death with the virility action figure.”

“ _ Fertility totem _ ,” Nate corrects hotly. “And it would make him  _ dead _ , because it’s solid rock.”

“I’m still here,” Felicity interjects, blinking owlishly down at them through the monitor. 

“And we’re all the better for your presence,” says Constantine smoothly. Zari grabs the figurine and waves it menacingly at him. At the threat of blunt force trauma, he subsides into silence.

“Now I know what Sara meant when she mentioned living on the Waverider,” Felicity says wearily. 

“What does  _ that  _ mean?” Ray says nervously.

“I believe her exact words were ‘a flaming shitcircus on wheels’,” Felicity says. 

“Wow,” Nate sniffs. “That hurts. We’re not even put-together enough to be a non-flaming shitcircus.”

“At least she’s creative.  _ Anyway _ ,” Zari says. “Should we go back to the whole government subterfuge plan we had?”

“Right,” Felicity says, snapping her fingers. “I am  _ literally  _ in the ARGUS system right now as we speak, and I think I’ve already found the site, but—”

“What, you didn’t save any fun for me?” Zari asks, tapping merrily away on her tablet with lightning speed in a way that reminds Nate of every terrible hacking movie he’s ever seen. Constantine, whose last known point of reference for any kind of hacking is  _ The Matrix  _ (only the first one because he got bored halfway through  _ Matrix: Reloaded _ , a fact that Gary laments), watches with vague interest.

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of party left over,” Felicity says. “I’m sending you the coordinates right now—have you ever heard of Green Bank, West Virginia?”

“Oh, shit!” Nate says excitedly. “I know this one!”

“Of  _ course _ you do,” Zari says, and her tone is a little fond in spite of her best efforts.

“Shut up, Ray and Mona made me watch a conspiracy documentary about it,” Nate says. “Let me impart my wisdom unto—”

“Gross, I’m gonna Google it,” says Zari.

“You have Google in 2042?” Felicity asks.

“Oh, yeah, dude,” Zari says. “Antitrust laws are no longer a thing, so  _ everything _ is Google in 2042! Once a month, there's gladiatorial fights across the nation in every county between the slowest performing members of the Amazon and Google residential teams, and the losers have to take submarines with a limited oxygen supply into the ocean to fix fiber optic cables that carry the internet. And the winners get credits that they can use to do online shopping on Google or ForestFirefox—yeah, Amazon's web services absorbed Mozilla Firefox in 2027 after a protracted battle with the Disney kleptocracy that took over the judicial branch of the US government, and the forest bit is a reference to the widespread destruction of the actual Amazon forest and the indigenous people who live there—sorry, why are you all looking at me like that?"

"In retrospect, this explains a lot of your emotional repression thing," Ray says nervously.

"Ohh," Zari says. "Jeff Bezos hasn't commanded an army of coal miners from the Rust Belt to kill the President because he's suppressing free enterprise in this timeline yet?"

"...No," says Nate. “We have democracy and stuff still.”

“Mostly,” Ray adds.

"My bad," Zari says. 

Felicity looks distinctly crestfallen. "I thought you were going to say hoverboards were real."

"We do have those!" Zari says, which makes Felicity perk up. "But the Shell-Exxon conglomerate forces the child laborers to use them to go underground to tap natural gas deposits."

"Oh my God," Felicity says, horrified. "I never want to hear anything about the future again."

“Seconded,” Ray says. “Although if you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m right down the hall! Even if I wish things were more  _ Star Trek _ and less  _ Blade Runner  _ in your life.”

“I understood half of that,” Zari says mildly.

“We have  _ got  _ to show you more Harrison Ford movies,” Nate says, head in hands.

“Uh, guys?” says Felicity. “Remember that super time sensitive thing we were trying to do, like, thirty seconds ago?”

“Right!” says Zari, shaking off the feeling of impending doom about the very dark future. “Gideon?”

“Green Bank is a town in West Virginia, situated in the National Radio Quiet Zone. At last count, it had a population of one hundred forty-three,” Gideon says. 

“Oh, hang on,” Zari says, snapping her fingers. “We’re looking for your doodads—”

“ _ Gadgets _ , please,” says Ray. “Have some respect for  _ my  _ craft.”

“See how it feels, Palmer?” Zari retorts. He grimaces. “Anyway, if your gadgets manipulate electromagnetic pulses, no  _ wonder  _ they’re in the—”

“NRQZ,” Ray says.

Zari brandishes the fertility totem at him with vague intent. “National Radio Quiet Zone, weirdo. Felicity, what’s the catch?”

For a moment, there’s nothing but the quiet sound of Felicity’s computer, her fingers just out of frame, striking the keys with a frantic rhythm. “I’m trying to see which security protocols you’ll have to get past in person, but I can’t figure out which level they’re on. There is  _ crazy _ encryption on these files.”

“One sec,” Zari says, examining her screen. “You can use a paradigmatic y-axis algorithm to exploit any available nodes.”

“A  _ y-axis? _ I haven’t tried something like that since my college days,” Felicity says, shuddering. “And even then, x-axis was my poison. Binumeric.”

“Trinumeric, baby,” Zari says smugly.

“A  _ genius _ ,” Felicity says. “A genius!”

“Surely none of this is English,” Constantine says dryly.

“I once heard you describe masturbation as ‘buffing the bishop’, so I’m not sure you’re fully qualified to comment on what is and isn’t English,” Nate says, rolling his eyes.

“Oh my  _ God, _ ” says Ray, with dawning horror in his eyes. “Is  _ that  _ what Charlie means when she says that to me?”

Constantine’s smirk grows into a full Cheshire cat grin. “Does she say that to you often, big man?”

“She—I—oh, God,” Ray says. “Look, if anyone needs me, I’ll be in the corner thinking about all the times I blindly agreed with Charlie.”

“When you were poaching your egg?” Constantine asks slyly.

“Poaching my—I thought she wanted  _ breakfast! _ ”

Constantine claps a hand over his mouth, heaving with laughter.

Ray sits down on the floor with a thud. He turns to face the wall. “No one talk to me, I’m in crisis.”

“Hate to interrupt your crisis,” Zari says, looking up from her laptop. “But we’ve got another one on our hands. So, the manipulators and the submarine are both on level Zeta.”

“Which is bad,” Felicity adds helpfully.

“Level Zeta? Is this the sci-fi futuristic sequel to  _ Ocean’s Eleven  _ I always wanted?” Nate says, which makes Zari question the wisdom of this whole venture.

“We’re in crisis and you’re asking about a sci-fi sequel to  _ Ocean’s Eleven? _ ” Felicity asks.

“Did you not also want one of those?”

“Yes, definitely, but  _ Ocean’s Eight  _ was great, too.”

“But wouldn’t it have been better if Cate Blanchett had been in a mech suit?” Nate says somberly. “Wouldn’t it have been better?”

“Not the time,” Ray says to the wall. “Are we talking grid of lasers bad?”

“Well, you’re going to need to bypass a retinal scanner calibrated for the director of ARGUS,” Felicity says. “So, yeah.”

“Hang on,” Nate says, a grin blooming on his face. “A retinal scan?”

“God, you guys are cool,” Felicity says. “I’ve never met anyone who was happy about a retinal scan before. I feel like I should clarify, though, that I can’t get Lyla to scan you in, and there is  _ literally  _ no way to get past this.”

“Oh, there’s a way,” Nate says. “And I think she might be free right now. Gideon, where’s Charlie?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you had fun! i just finished constantine's solo show and i am DEEPLY obsessed with him, as i always have been. if you need me i'm on twit @vcikyrie and tumblr @irltrash. comments and kudos keep my bank account full (emotionally speaking).

**Author's Note:**

> HI hope you enjoyed yourself! i'll be back here same time next week with another chapter, and we'll just keep doing that till we run out of rope. if you'd like to discuss the arrowverse, send me prompts, or yell at me for being dumb, i'm on tumblr @irltrash and twitter @vcikyrie. i could use another beta who really knows this show well to help me nitpick for character accuracy, so if you're interested you know where to find me! also, this would not be possible without V, who is my partner in everything i do even if she doesn't watch this dumb show. as nate would say, love you big. additional thanks to jim, whose critiques are always incisive and immensely helpful and whose patience rivals a saint's, and to tara and adam who beta'd for me on tumblr. and of course, kudos and comments help pay my bills (emotionally speaking)! see you next week xoxo!


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